Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

Anyone facing a DUI understands that the breathalyzer results are very important. Those numerical results are supposed to equate to a person's Bodily Alcohol Content (BAC), and are used by the Police and Prosecutors to show that that a person was "under the influence" or "over the limit" in any Drunk Driving Case. Beyond that, once a person's BAC has been measured at the Police Station, they are not released until that number has fallen low enough to be sure the Police aren't responsible for letting an intoxicated person out of their care and custody.

In my DUI Practice, this number is important to me for a variety of reasons. It goes without saying that any DUI Lawyer, like me, looks at that number with the hope that it can somehow be challenged in a way that makes the whole DUI charge collapse. In this article we'll briefly examine the whole notion of challenging the breathalyzer.

I have pointed out that those situations in which a case can be "knocked out" because of some breathalyzer problem are more the exception, rather than the rule. This is a phrase that we'll repeat a number of times throughout this article. I simply will not set up shop and "cash in" by selling, and telling people, what they want to hear, as opposed to telling the truth. And the truth is that most DUI cases are not going to be dismissed on some breathalyzer technicality.

In a prior article entitled Michigan DUI - How the Rich and Famous Beat the Charges," I pointed out that, in most cases, they don't. I think that's a fact worth repeating. If these charges could be beaten by simple persistence, then every single celebrity and person of fame would just plunk down the cash to "Lawyer up" and get the case dismissed. Yet, almost every day, we hear of someone famous getting charged with DUI, and, sometime later, you hear about them being placed on Probation.

Why?

Because those DUI cases that can be easily knocked out are the exception, and not the rule.

Consider, for a moment, the garden-variety DUI charge. The Officer will claim to have observed the Driver swerve or in some way drive erratically. Sometimes, these observations are made (or at least claimed) after a cell-phone tip. When the person is pulled over, the Officer notes all the usual characteristics of DUI driving. Fast-forwarding a bit, after being taken to the Police Station, the end result is usually a breathalyzer (BAC) score of over, if not well over, the legal limit of .08.

Continue reading "Michigan DUI - Understanding and Challenging Breathalyzer Results" »

As a Lawyer who is in Court for DUI cases multiple times every week, I read more Breathalyzer results than you can imagine. This article will focus on a very important, but often-overlooked aspect of what's called the "BAC" in a DUI case. This is NOT an article which will discuss the theory of Breathalyzer accuracy and all that. Instead, this article will focus on how Breathalyzer results can and do affect every DUI case that makes it into Court.

Earlier this week, I handled a DUI for a fellow who had been stopped for swerving across the road. After his Arrest, he was taken to the Police Station and given a Breathalyzer test using the Datamaster machine. His test results were .21 and .22. We'll get back to his case, and the example it provides, later. If you are facing, or have had A DUI, then you have most likely met this machine. If not, you probably had your blood taken.

At the conclusion of the breath testing, the machine prints out a form and the person tested receives a copy. That copy is usually pink and looks like a big store receipt. It list details of the test, and the results are titled "BAC." This stands for Bodily Alcohol Content." Sometimes, people mistakenly refer to BAC as "Breath Alcohol Content," or "Blood Alcohol Content."

One of the questions any Lawyer who regularly handles DUI cases will quickly ask a prospective Client is something like "what was your BAC?" That BAC score is very important in determining the severity of a person's case. In fact, that score often provides loads of information about a DUI case, and what's likely to happen as a result.

For starters, the BAC is often used as a "wet thumb test" to make an on-the-spot determination if a person is a big drinker or not. Now I'm not saying that this is scientifically accurate, but I am saying that Cops, Prosecutors, and, most importantly, Judges, look at the BAC as a sort of barometer to determine if a person is a real lightweight, or a big drinker.

Let's look at a few examples: If a person is arrested on a Thursday night for a DUI, and their BAC is .23, then the Judge (or Magistrate) who handles their Arraignment is going to know that their Bodily Alcohol Content was about 3 times the legal limit of .08. That means they were very, very drunk. On the other hand, if they weren't very, very drunk then they are a hardcore drinker. A lightweight, newbie drinker could never get a BAC that high. In other words, a .23 BAC means a person is probably a big drinker, whether they were drunk out of their minds, or not.

Continue reading "DUI in the Detroit Area - How the BAC Breathalyzer Result Affects Your Case" »