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THE MYTH OF BREATH TESTS
RADLEY BALKO, HIT & RUN - A local CBS television reporter went drinking
to test various personal blood-alcohol devices. She found a wide
disparity in readings among the different brands, showing I guess that
you really shouldn't trust the things. What she fails to do, though, is
ask why courts are then so reliant on them. She brought some patrol
officers with her, and measured her results against the device she
describes as "court-approved." But she never really questions whether or
not that one is accurate. She then says that the police officers who
helped her with the story told her that "how a drinker scores in a field
sobriety test is the real measure of inebriation." In fact, this simply
isn't true. The standard field sobriety test was adopted by NHTSA after
one poorly administered test on 238 subjects in 1977. It's never been
peer reviewed. One forensic expert in Georgia gave the test to 21 of his
students, none of whom had a drop to drink. He then showed video of the
tests to a group of police officers. They said they'd arrest nearly half
of them.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/121187.html
LAWRENCE TAYLOR, DUI BLOG - Unique among criminal offenses, a citizen
accused of drunk driving faces trial by machine. . . Prosecutors
continue to assure jurors that these state-of-the-art breathalyzers are
highly accurate scientific instruments - so accurate and reliable that
they can feel comfortable finding the defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt based solely upon the machine. . . Just how accurate
and reliable are these “state-of-the-art” breath machines?
Not very, according to internal documents from the State of Virginia's
Department of Forensic Science.
Attorney Robert F. Keefer of Harrisonburg, Virginia, filed a demand
under the Freedom of Information Act for records concerning the machine
used in that state, the Intoxilyzer 5000 (the most commonly used machine
in the country over the past 15 years. . . The following are direct
quotes from those documents:
"Funding of this request will allow the agency to replace instruments
(Intoxilyer 5000 instruments) that are 9-10 years old and for which
replacements are not available. These instruments are outdated and the
manufacturer is no longer maintaining parts and not capable of fully
supporting them since current instruments demonstrate two further
generations of technological advancement."
In response to the request form's question, “What are the expected
results to be achieved if this request is funded?”, the following
response was given:
"To replace outdated, unstable and unreliable breath alcohol
instrumentation used by police officers throughout the Commonwealth to
certify whether a driver is or is not impaired."
Unstable and unreliable. But do you think this is what prosecutors in
Virginia tell juries? Of course not
http://www.duiblog.com/2007/06/13/report-breathalyzers-outdated-
unstable-unreliable/
MORE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/
AR2005111401511_pf.html
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THE MYTH OF BREATH TESTS
RADLEY BALKO, HIT & RUN - A local CBS television reporter went drinking
to test various personal blood-alcohol devices. She found a wide
disparity in readings among the different brands, showing I guess that
you really shouldn't trust the things. What she fails to do, though, is
ask why courts are then so reliant on them. She brought some patrol
officers with her, and measured her results against the device she
describes as "court-approved." But she never really questions whether or
not that one is accurate. She then says that the police officers who
helped her with the story told her that "how a drinker scores in a field
sobriety test is the real measure of inebriation." In fact, this simply
isn't true. The standard field sobriety test was adopted by NHTSA after
one poorly administered test on 238 subjects in 1977. It's never been
peer reviewed. One forensic expert in Georgia gave the test to 21 of his
students, none of whom had a drop to drink. He then showed video of the
tests to a group of police officers. They said they'd arrest nearly half
of them.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/121187.html
LAWRENCE TAYLOR, DUI BLOG - Unique among criminal offenses, a citizen
accused of drunk driving faces trial by machine. . . Prosecutors
continue to assure jurors that these state-of-the-art breathalyzers are
highly accurate scientific instruments - so accurate and reliable that
they can feel comfortable finding the defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt based solely upon the machine. . . Just how accurate
and reliable are these “state-of-the-art” breath machines?
Not very, according to internal documents from the State of Virginia's
Department of Forensic Science.
Attorney Robert F. Keefer of Harrisonburg, Virginia, filed a demand
under the Freedom of Information Act for records concerning the machine
used in that state, the Intoxilyzer 5000 (the most commonly used machine
in the country over the past 15 years. . . The following are direct
quotes from those documents:
"Funding of this request will allow the agency to replace instruments
(Intoxilyer 5000 instruments) that are 9-10 years old and for which
replacements are not available. These instruments are outdated and the
manufacturer is no longer maintaining parts and not capable of fully
supporting them since current instruments demonstrate two further
generations of technological advancement."
In response to the request form's question, “What are the expected
results to be achieved if this request is funded?”, the following
response was given:
"To replace outdated, unstable and unreliable breath alcohol
instrumentation used by police officers throughout the Commonwealth to
certify whether a driver is or is not impaired."
Unstable and unreliable. But do you think this is what prosecutors in
Virginia tell juries? Of course not
http://www.duiblog.com/2007/06/13/report-breathalyzers-outdated-
unstable-unreliable/
MORE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/
AR2005111401511_pf.html
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