One of the ways the state of Georgia can convict a person of driving under the influence is by proving that the driver had a 0.08 grams or more blood alcohol concentration (BAC) while driving or otherwise being in control of a vehicle.
In Georgia, the Intoxilyzer 5000 is the current breath-testing machine used to detect whether or not a person has been drinking or is over the current legal limit of 0.08. Before you are arrested for a DUI, one of the methods an officer will use to determine your guilt is by administering this breath test. If you refuse to take the breath test your driver’s license will automatically be suspended (although there is a way to fight the license suspension – click on link for more).
While the Intoxilyzer 5000 is a sophisticated test, it comes with many design flaws that can potentially help your case if you are convicted with a DUI.
The Intoxilyzer 5000 can result in inaccurate readings if the driver suffers from a variety of illnesses, including diabetes, esophageal hernia, heartburn, gum disease, respiratory problems, and liver disease. Because the Intoxilyzer 5000 also has problems determining whether the alcohol it is measuring is from the driver’s mouth or actually in the bloodstream, if the driver had been chewing certain gum, had tobacco products, breath mints, denture adhesives, or had taken cough syrup before driving, the results are faulty. These inaccuracies are even more significant when drivers are under the age of 21 and could be arrested with a BAC as low as .02% or higher.
The accuracy of the Intoxilyzer 5000 is also dependent on the competency of the police officer administering it. Many officers have not been formally trained in using the Intoxilyzer 5000, and most are given only minimal training. The extent of the arresting officer’s training should always be questioned in court.
Illnesses, potential of alternative forms of alcohol in your mouth, and the arresting officer’s training are all significant factors that could lead to inaccuracies in your DUI case. An experienced DUI attorney can help locate these inaccuracies and save you from a DUI conviction. If you have been arrested for driving under the influence and would like to speak with an experienced DUI attorney, please fill out the Free Case Review form found on this website.
Filed under Intoxilyzer 5000 issues by on Mar 3rd, 2010. Comment. 
Every DUI lawyer has faced the question “how can you face yourself in the mirror in the morning, knowing that you are defending drunk drivers who might cause injury or death to innocent men, women and children? Wouldn’t we all be better off if drunk drivers lost their licenses permanently and were left to rot in jail for months or years?”
Persons accused of driving under the influence garner little sympathy, especially those with multiple offenses. How can any lawyer want to get a repeat offender off on a technicality?
Here is how I respond:
First, the goal of any reputable criminal defense lawyer is to investigate to determine whether the state (in the form of the police officers and the prosecutors) have done their job according to the law. In the American system, criminal prosecutions are adversarial in nature, meaning that the state’s attorneys (the prosecutor) and the defense attorney are on opposite sides.
Our founding fathers recognized that representatives of the state have significant resources and built in authority when appearing before juries. Such power can be abused if not held in check. Unfettered police power can turn a free society into an authoritarian one. History has shown that when agents of the state can enter people’s homes at will, detain them indefinitely, and incarcerate without critically analyzed evidence, personal freedom disappears. We can both support the hard work and bravery of policemen and women while at the same time demanding that these officers take care to collect and store evidence properly, advise the accused of certain constitutional rights and engage in a certain baseline of appropriate conduct.
How does all this apply to a DUI case? Take a look at this informative article about blood alcohol testing kits in Georgia from respected Newnan, Georgia DUI defense attorney Alan Trapp. Alan discusses the blood collection kits used by state and county police forces in Georgia and the potential for false results because of stale preservative or a defective seal. Now imagine that you consumed one beer at dinner and were randomly stopped at a DUI checkpoint. Further assume that the DUI kit used by the local police officer was contaminated with a yeast called Candida albicans that began to ferment when blood was added. Further assume that there was insufficient preservative in the test kit. A properly calibrated kit might have shown your blood alcohol content at .03, well below the legal limit, but the contaminated kit yielded a result of .09. Read more on A Defense of the DUI Law Practice…
Filed under DUI laws, Fines and Fees, Police conduct issues, Punishment issues, Trial issues by on Mar 12th, 2010. 3 Comments.
In the last few weeks, I’ve gone over multiple ways that law enforcement officers test drivers to determine if they were driving under the influence, such as with a breath test and field sobriety tests. There are countless flaws in many of these tests, and the one I am going to cover today, the urine test, is no different.
There are three different types of chemical tests that officers use to determine the driver’s blood alcohol content: breath, blood, and urine. The urine test can be considered the most unreliable form of chemical test because there are many ways the results can be faulty.
Urine tests, just like most other sobriety tests, are dependent on the administrator’s ability. If the officer was not properly trained to administer the test correctly, or does not follow the correct procedures, the test results are unreliable.
The concentration of alcohol in urine is 1.33 times the concentration of alcohol in the blood, so the results are inflated. Because this is a known fact, urine tests are typically used just to determine if the driver had taken drugs at all.
According to a study done by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, 20% of the labs that were surveyed had wrongly reported that illegal substances were discovered in urine samples that were actually completely free of illegal substances. This is because many illegal substances have similar chemical compounds to other substances which are legal. For example, if you have are sick and are taking a non-drowsy cold medicine, amphetamines may be found in your results. If you are taking Ibuprofen, marijuana may be found in your results. It’s not an old wives tale: it is even possible to fail a drug test from eating a poppy seed bagel!
Another issue with the urine test is that it is not able to determine when the illegal substance was used. A urine test will find any traces of the substances even if it was used a week ago and is no longer affecting the user. Therefore, if a driver is pulled over on a Wednesday and had used illegal substances last Sunday, even though the drugs have no affect on their driving ability anymore, they can still test positive for using them.
The good news: Because the urine test has countless flaws, test results can be easily challenged in court.
Due to all its flaws, the urine test is rarely used, especially since officers have other/better methods for determining whether people have been driving under the influence. Have you ever been subjected to a urine test in Georgia? Or have you known anyone who has? If so, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter. It is not something we see very often.
Filed under DUI urine testing by on Mar 15th, 2010. 1 Comment.
