Chicago DUI attorney comments on hundreds of DUI convictions questioned based on faulty breath machines

This Chicago DUI attorney posted here just last week about faulty breath machines. She witnessed people without any alcohol in their systems (according to the testing machine) after just one shot of vodka and then immediately blowing into the machine registering amounts of alcohol that should have rendered them unconscious.


It shouldn’t be too much of a shock to discover that there are faulty breath machines. Of greater significance, those faulty breath machines were instrumental to the government in securing convictions against people charged with DUI.

June 10, Washington, D.C.

Nearly 400 people were convicted of driving while intoxicated in the District since fall 2008 based on inaccurate results from breath test machines, and half of them went to jail, city officials said Wednesday.

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said the machines were improperly adjusted by city police. The jailed defendants generally served at least five days, he said.

Nickles's office has begun notifying the drivers, a move that immediately triggered at least one lawsuit against the District and could lead to requests for expungements, new trials and even deeper skepticism about the integrity of testing. Challenging test results is at the heart of drunken-driving cases, and this revelation will only strengthen those challenges, defense attorneys said.

The District's badly calibrated equipment would show a driver's blood-alcohol content to be about 20 percent higher than it actually was, Nickles said. All 10 of the breath test machines used by District police were wrong, he said. The problem occurred when the officer in charge of maintaining the machines improperly set the baseline alcohol concentration levels, Nickles said.

Isn’t it time we stop putting our trust in machines when it comes to the freedom and liberty of folks accused of DUI?