Search Results for: BREATH TEST

Ohio’s DUI laws (called ‘OVI’ in Ohio) criminalize driving with a prohibited breath alcohol concentration.  To determine whether a person has a prohibited breath alcohol concentration, law enforcement officers use breath-testing machines.  If a person refuses a breath test, there are consequences.  However, differences in height, age, gender, and smoking habits make some people physically […]

Defense attorneys and forensic experts have claimed for years breath-testing machines are unreliable. Those claims tend to fall on deaf ears due to the inherent bias of the source: defense attorneys are advocates for clients accused of crimes based on the results of the machines. Recently, however, more objective sources investigated the reliability of alcohol […]

Clean hands is an obsession for some people.  In addition to frequent hand-washing, many people also use alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Aside from the potential issues with dry skin and weakened immune system (not to mention OCD!), use of hand sanitizers can also affect the results of a breath alcohol test.

When a machine is given the power to convict a person of a crime, we should be absolutely certain the machine is working properly. In Ohio, machines are used to measure the concentration of alcohol in the breath of drivers. A driver who operates a vehicle with a breath alcohol concentration of .080 or more […]

Over 20,000 DWI cases in New Jersey are being called into question due to problems with the recalibration of breath-testing machines.  According to New Jersey 101.5, Sgt. Marc Dennis skipped a critical step each time he recalibrated the machines.  Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit now seek to vacate thousands of convictions in which evidence was […]

Last week, the United States Supreme Court released a decision in a trio of cases involving DUI refusal laws.  A previous article in this blog gives a preview of the cases.  To decide the outcomes of those cases, the court analyzes whether search warrants are required before law enforcement officers can administer breath tests and […]

Somewhere between ten percent and twenty percent of Americans have GERD: Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease. While the advertisements by pharmaceutical companies have made GERD common knowledge, it is no so commonly known that this medical condition can inflate the result of an alcohol breath test. When the defendant in an OVI case has GERD, lawyers […]

For three decades, lawyers and judges have been misinterpreting the case of State v. Vega. In Vega, the Ohio Supreme Court held defendants in DUI/OVI cases may not attack the general reliability of breath-testing machines. Some lawyers and judges interpret Vega as if it says defendants are not permitted to make any challenge to the […]

Intoxilyzer 8000 Declared Unreliable In Ohio DUI/OVI Case This blog has discussed Intoxilyzer 8000 litigation in many previous posts. One of those posts (November 18, 2012) mentioned the case of State v. Lancaster in the Marietta Municipal Court. I was asked to help with that litigation as counsel for Lancaster. Like many of the I-8000 […]

In previous posts, this blog has discussed two separate but related issues. The post on May 3, 2010 explained that defendants in Ohio O.V.I. cases do not have the ability to challenge the general reliability of breath testing machines at trial due to the holding in State v. Vega. The post on May 29, 2010 […]

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