Massachusetts DUI Attorney Blog

Washington D.C. police and prosecutors will have to wait a year to have what they believe is a reliable and accurate breath-testing program, The Washington Post recently reported.

Breathalyzers haven't been used in about a year, according to the article, because inaccuracies from miscalibrated equipment had overstated breath-test scores in about 400 convictions dating back to 2008.

This is just another example of how bad breathalyzers are and how their inaccuracies have caused harm to drivers who weren't drunk but who were penalized. As Massachusetts DUI Attorney Blog has pointed out, breathalyzer testing is inherently inaccurate. But police continue to use them to try to secure OUI convictions in Boston.

According to the article, the absence of a breath-test program contributed to a drop of about 42 percent in drunk driving arrests by district police. Officials have said drunken driving prosecution has "stalled" because police have been using more cumbersome methods, such as urine samples and roadside sobriety testing, to make arrests. Even a local medical examiner office toxicologist said alcohol levels registered through urine testing have "very little correlation to blood concentrations for alcohol."

According to a web page by a State University of New York at Potsdam professor emeritus, a breathalyzer can only "estimate" a person's blood-alcohol concentration. Only a sample of the person's blood can "measure" a person's blood-alcohol content. And while blood testing is considered to be accurate, breath testing can be manipulated by breathing heavily, lightly, eating certain foods on top of operator error and miscalculated machines.

In Massachusetts, a driver who refuses a breathalyzer test automatically has their driver's license suspended for 180 days, pending an appeal, which must be made within 15 days of your arrest. The hearing is held at the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in Boston, regardless of where the offense occurred. for those with prior OUI convictions, a breathalyzer refusal after one prior conviction requires a three-year license suspension, five years after two priors and a lifetime suspension after three prior convictions.

But refusing a breath test denies the Commonwealth a potentially large piece of evidence against you. If prosecutors are unable to use breath testing to convince a jury the driver was drunk, they must rely solely on the officer's testimony, which is sometimes faulty.

If a breathalyzer test isn't refused, it should be fought in court. An officer not telling the driver they have a right to an independent medical exam, not allowing for a 15-minute observation period to have breathalyzer testing admitted into evidence and prosecutors not having proper documentation to show the machine is reliable are all reasons a Massachusetts OUI Lawyer can win cases in Massachusetts.