Cop calibrated breath-testing devices to produce higher alcohol-content readings

[The Straight Story]

Drivers Can Pursue Cop for Botched DWI Tests


WASHINGTON (CN) - Motorists ensnared for drunken driving may have a civil rights case against the D.C. cop who allegedly knowingly calibrated breath-testing devices to produce higher alcohol-content readings, a federal judge ruled.

District officials announced in February 2010 that its Intoxilyzer machines were improperly calibrated to generate higher readings, leading to a swath of dismissed or vacated drunken-driving charges.

The consolidated lawsuit presented claims from 20 different individuals charged and convicted of driving while intoxicated, but just five plaintiffs remain after a previous dismissal order.

They claim that Officer Kelvin King, as head of the Impaired Driver Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, calibrated the city's Intoxilyzer 5000EN machines so that they produce readings that were 30 percent higher than a person's actual blood alcohol level.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/15/41467.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Same thing happened to my client 15 years ago in NJ.

Cops saw empty beer cans in her house, told her to follow them to the police station to bail out her husband, waited for her to turn on the motor and then arrested her for DWI in park in her own driveway with the entrance to the street blocked by the police cruiser.

At the station, her first two readings weren't "satisfactory" and the cops jiggled the knobs of the calibrator until they got the reading they wanted on the third try.

[backtoblue]

4. what assholes!

Were you able to help her case?

[no_hypocrisy]

10. They were and we did everything that could be done.

We lost b/c the judge believed the lying cops when we cross-examined them. And yes, we did argue entrapment.

And we lost on appeal.

Essentially a woman drinking beer in her home on Super Bowl Sunday was convicted of DWI while sitting in her parked vehicle on her property.

[backtoblue]

12. unfortunately

entrapment doesn't make for a good case anymore. Seems like the police, everywhere, are lords unto themselves and their word is golden.

I feel for that woman. nt

[unblock]

18. i wasn't aware that driving regulations like dwi extended to one's own private property.

the cops could just as well have let her inch onto the public road and achieve the same effect, but still.

i know there are plenty in the midwest who have driven cars and heavy machinery well underage and without a license on private farms, for instance.

[JoeyT]

21. From what I've been told you can be arrested for DUI

just for sitting in the driver's seat if you've been drinking. (Or the breathalyzer says you have). No need to have the car cranked up or even have the keys in the ignition.

Edited to add: And if you're not in the driver's seat they ask you to step out of the car and arrest you for public intoxication. Just kidding. Probably.

[sofa king]

22. They do that, too.

In the '90s in Fairfax County it was so widely known that the passenger in a DWI case would also get popped for public intoxication that I knew a dude who successfully refused to exit the vehicle until the police finally let the tow truck haul the car away with the guy still in it.

I wouldn't bother trying that now. I'm sure there's a law against that now.

[LAGC]

2. And some folks wonder why so many people distrust the police...

:grr:

[Javaman]

3. Got to make those monthly numbers, after all! nt

[Lance_Boyle]

5. Thank MADD. They brought this about.

Goes to show you what a loudmouthed group of hysterical whiners can do when they set their "minds" to creating criminals out of thin air.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[lumberjack_jeff]

6. Cops shouldn't be enabled to "calibrate" their tools.

The knob shouldn't be there.

[AngryAmish]

8. A breathalyzer must be calibrated

Without getting too far into the weeds a breathalyzer takes a breath sample and runs it through a spectrometer where the % of alcohol in the breath is read (huge swaths of scientific mumbo-jumbo omitted). Over time what is read as .08 needs to be defined by a know sample which truly is at .08 (the machine will drift up and down over time). So about monthly these samples are tested and the machine is calibrated. Logs are kept of this sort of thing.

[liberal N proud]

9. I would think that unless it was certified, it would be inadmissible.

If the cops are doing the calibration, it can't really be certified.

[AngryAmish]

14. In IL the state police do most of it

yeah, foxes and henhouses

[backscatter712]

11. That's nice if you can trust the people doing the calibrating...

But as I've concluded long ago, as have just about everyone else on DU, that police are professional liars, excuse me for not trusting the calibration.

[zbdent]

20. There was a cop out in Ohio who, essentially, admitted fabricating details on

a police report ... the legendary "the cop can judge perfectly well by sight alone if the driver is speeding" in Ohio ...

The cop admitted falsifying the report ... he said that he reported the speed to be lower than it was (I think the actual speed was 85, the fabricated speed on the report said 70) so that the driver wouldn't get points ...

Despite the fact that the cop admitted lying, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in the cop's favor ... (unbelievable) and the ticket stood. I would think that, if he admitted that he lied, it would call in to question all his other stops/arrests/reports ... but then, I believe that one of the judges was Republican Maureen O'Conner, who had a DUI ticket a while back, and was still presented as a reliable justice ...

[backscatter712]

16. Indeed. The cops can't be trusted.

If the machines have a calibration know, the pigs will fuck with it, as seen in the OP.

[jayfish]

13. In Michigan, PBT units are a closed and certifed.

Also, they are not the determining factor in OUIL cases. They are only used as an initial assessment tool. If you fail a PBT you are subject to a more thorough examination via blood, breath or urine in a hospital setting. It's a pretty tight procedure.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. derp. duh. derp and duh. derpity derp. da duh. duh. duh.

[frylock]

19. this is why it's advised that you never submit to a breathalyzer..

opt to have blood drawn instead.