6.10.2010

More False Convictions Based on False Breath Tests-This Time It's D.C. DUI Defendant-Victims

Visit: ByeByeDwi.com During a New Hampshire DWI trial I was asked by the judge, "why would an innocent person refuse to take a breath test?". My answer, in part, was that many innocent people simply don't trust the government generally and the police in particular. An innocent person who felt she had passed all her field sobriety tests is less likely to continue to perform tests after she is arrested. Conventional wisdom is that the old gray breath boxes don't work and in New Hampshire it's up to the cop whether you get to have a blood test or breath test.

Well here's another horror story, this time from Washington, D.C. where the officer in charge of calibrating the state's breath machine improperly set the alcohol baseline so that every test on all 10 of the police breath gadgets overstated every breath test result by 20%. This resulted in 400 false convictions based entirely on the printout from a machine that had been falsely set by a cop. Most of these 400 people went to jail because of these erroneous readings. So why would an innocent person refuse to take a breath test? After reading this story the only surprise might be if any one who reads it would ever blow into one of these aging breath test hoses.

>Visit: washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/09/AR2010060906257.html.com

If you've been accused of DWI in New Hampshire please feel free to call me at 1-603-893-0074 for a free consultation about your case.

Attorney Mark Stevens
5 Manor Parkway
Salem, NH 03079
1-603-893-0074
Visit: ByeByeDwi.com

For District of Columbia DUI laws, see dui-dc.com

Visit: dui-dc.com

1 comment:

  1. are these the same type of breath test machines used by cops everywhere?

    ReplyDelete