Articles Posted in Breath Testing

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A bill that was recently approved by the New Jersey State Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee (NJSBA) would change the requirements for ignition interlock devices (IIDs) in driving while intoxicated (DWI) cases. Under current New Jersey DWI law, an IID is only mandatory for second or subsequent convictions, or in cases where chemical testing shows a sufficiently high blood alcohol content (BAC). The proposed bill would make IIDs mandatory in all DWI cases across the state. The New Jersey Assembly passed a companion bill in June 2014. A previous version of the bill was passed by the state Senate, but not the Assembly, in 2013.

State law defines an IID as a device that “permit[s] a motor vehicle to be started only when the driver is sober.” The device must be installed on the dashboard of a DWI defendant’s vehicle. Prior to starting the vehicle, the driver must blow into the device, much like with an Alcotest machine or other breathalyzer. The device analyzes the breath sample and, if the BAC is reading is greater than the pre-programmed maximum, it prevents the vehicle’s ignition switch from sending a signal to the starter. In short, the driver may turn the key, but the car won’t start.

If the IID prevents operation of the vehicle, it may continue to do so for some programmed period of time to allow the driver to sober up. The accuracy and reliability of breathalyzer devices is a common issue in DWI cases, and IIDs can present similar problems. State law requires the Motor Vehicle Commission to certify IIDs and maintain a list of approved providers, but the devices require regular maintenance in order to function correctly. Continue reading

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For more than eight years, our law firm has been principally involved in challenges to the Alcotest device, which the state uses to measure blood alcohol content (BAC) in DWI cases. We represented the lead defendant in a 2008 case, State v. Chun, in which the New Jersey Supreme Court established strict guidelines for the admissibility of Alcotest results and required multiple changes to the device’s software. Unfortunately, New Jersey courts have since rolled back those protections, starting with a 2011 ruling in State v. Holland. We went back to court in the Chun case in 2013 to challenge the state’s failure to do what the Court ordered in 2008. While the court ruled that the state may continue using the Alcotest device, the state will have to find an alternative soon. The German company Draeger, which manufactures the Alcotest, will no longer offer a warranty for the device after 2016.

The state continues to use the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C device, with the New Jersey State Police offering operator certification and re-certification training for state, county, and local law enforcement. A person whose BAC is 0.08 percent or higher is presumed to be intoxicated under state law. BAC evidence is not necessarily required to prove DWI in court, but without it, prosecutors must rely on physical observations of alleged intoxication. While witness testimony is subject to cross-examination and challenge on a wide range of issues, a defendant typically may only challenge BAC evidence based on the device’s maintenance, calibration, and proper functioning. The Alcotest device has raised many questions in these areas.

In Chun, we challenged the scientific reliability of the Alcotest device, which uses two methods to measure alcohol concentration in a breath sample. The court’s decision describes how the device captures the breath sample in a chamber, where it uses infrared energy to calculate the alcohol content based on energy absorption. The second method takes part of the breath sample from the infrared chamber and applies voltage to oxidize the alcohol. This creates electricity, which the device measures to determine the alcohol amount. The device requires careful calibration, with a period of at least 20 minutes between calibration and use. Continue reading

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A recent decision by the Superior Court of New Jersey, State v. O’Neill, highlights two important features of New Jersey driving while intoxicated (DWI) laws. First, the court held that, under New Jersey’s implied consent law, any response other than an unambiguous “yes” to an officer’s request to submit to breath testing may be deemed a refusal. Even verbal consent by a person to breath testing, as long as her mother remained with her, could be considered “refusal” under this interpretation of the law. Second, state law requires officers to read a statement regarding implied consent and refusal, and as long as an officer reads the statement prior to taking a breath sample, the state has fulfilled its duty under the law. This applies even if the statement omits information any defendant might reasonably find useful.

The defendant was stopped by a police officer in Bernard Township, New Jersey on January 19, 2013, allegedly for speeding. The officer determined that she had consumed alcohol before driving, although the court does not say how. After placing her under arrest and transporting her to police headquarters, the officer read the New Jersey Attorney General’s Standard Statement for Motor Vehicle Operators (the “Standard Statement”) aloud to her. The defendant responded that she would agree to testing if her mother could be with her. Because this response was “conditional,” rather than “yes,” the officer read the final section of the Standard Statement, which states that she could be charged with refusal for any answer “other than ‘yes.’” The defendant replied “no.”

The officer charged the defendant with DWI, refusal to submit to breath testing, speeding, and failing to produce documentation. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the refusal charge in the municipal court, arguing that the state did not fulfill its statutory duties because it failed to advise her of the minimum penalties if she were to be convicted of refusal. The municipal court denied her motion. The defendant pleaded guilty to DWI, and entered a conditional plea of guilty to refusal, reserving her right to appeal the dismissal motion. The Law Division denied her appeal, and the case went before the Superior Court. Continue reading

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Discussing legal matters on the internet is really never a good idea, and this is especially true with regard to criminal cases. A Michigan woman, who was on probation for DWI, may be returning to jail because of a Facebook post in which she reportedly admitted to drinking alcohol. The probation department, alerted by local police, tried to investigate further, and subsequently asked the court to rule her in violation of the terms of her probation. This could result in her serving the actual jail term included in her conviction.

The woman was convicted of DWI and put on probation in 2012. She was reportedly participating in a specialized probation program for DWI offenders that required her to submit to random breath tests. The probation department brought in over two hundred “high risk probationers,” including her, for testing over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. In a Facebook post later that day, she stated that she passed the breath test even though she had drank the previous day. She reportedly only had a few weeks left on her probation period at the time.

A police officer saw the Facebook post and notified the probation department. Since consuming alcohol could constitute a violation of her probation, the probation department ordered her to submit to additional testing. A probation officer called her to tell her to come in for a urine test, which would reveal whether she had consumed any alcohol during the previous eighty hours. The woman allegedly hung up on the probation officer. The department considered this a violation of her probation, and notified the court. Continue reading

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The New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division considered the appeal of a DWI defendant in State v. Lobo that challenged the admissibility of Alcotest results. The defendant argued in part that the state’s failure to provide him with complete repair and maintenance records for the device used to test his blood alcohol content (BAC) entitled him to relief on appeal. The state’s case relied on results from an Alcotest device, which has been sufficiently controversial that the state plans on retiring it. The court rejected each of the defendant’s points of error and affirmed the conviction.

The defendant was arrested on April 29, 2011 after a traffic stop. At a State Police barracks, officers administered a breath test using a Dräger Alcotest 7110 MK III-C device. The test showed a BAC of 0.13 percent, and the defendant was charged with DWI. The court ordered the state to produce repair records and other information regarding the Alcotest device. Prosecutors later informed the court that some repair records were not available, leading the court to modify its order to require production of “repair records that exist.”

Based on the information obtained about the device, the defendant moved to dismiss the case or exclude the Alcotest results on multiple grounds. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion. The defendant entered a conditional guilty plea, which allowed him to preserve the issues raised in his motion to dismiss for appeal. Continue reading

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A series of errors by a private laboratory testing company has called hundreds of pending DWI cases into question. Blood samples sent to the lab were reportedly mislabeled, or were subject to other paperwork errors, resulting in uncertain test results. Prosecutors are trying to determine whether retesting is possible, while DWI defendants and their advocates remain skeptical that the state has revealed all of the damage done by the lab’s errors. Laws defining the offense of DWI generally do not require evidence of blood alcohol content (BAC) obtained through blood or breath testing, but chemical evidence is generally considered the simplest way for prosecutors to prove intoxication.

The district attorney’s office in San Antonio, Texas contracted with the laboratory, which is located in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, to test samples taken by police in DWI cases. The lab reportedly sent a letter to the DA’s office in May 2014 informing it that an analyst had made multiple errors in paperwork affecting hundreds of samples. The DA’s office has reportedly not made the full extent of the errors public, but one error by the analyst, who has been terminated by the lab, involved incorrect labeling of 350 samples.

The lab has reportedly sent test results to the DA’s office with notices that they cannot definitively link the results to a specific sample, although the DA’s office has denied that results have actually been mixed up between cases. The office has also denied that any samples were contaminated by the lab, although news media have reported that some documents make reference to contaminated equipment. The situation has left both prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys uncertain how to proceed with pending DWI cases. Continue reading

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New Jersey DWI breath testing is not reliable and should be challenged by a qualified DWI lawyer.

“So, what you’re telling us is that the world is round, even though we all believe it is flat.” That is essentially what the judge said, who handled the original scientific reliability hearing in State v. Chun. This encapsulates the system’s view of breath testing in New Jersey and the world.

Breath testing has been demonstrated by scientific experts in the field to be up to 100% inaccurate. However, courts across the country have accepted the “forensic science” of breath testing, and have allowed this mechanism to be utilized to wrongly convict people of DWI. Many scholars have written on the subject, and those articles are available for review.

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Police departments in many towns in New Jersey are now utilizing portable hand held breath testing devices known as preliminary breath testers, or PBT’s. A PBT can either report an actual breath test result in numerical format such as 0.08% breath alcohol, or it can simply show a positive or negative result, signifying whether alcohol is present in the breath or not.

The PBT’s are generally supposed to be used at the end of the investigation, and not as the basis to continue an investigation. The theory is that once the officer confirms the presence of alcohol, any subjective evidence collected thereafter, such as field exercises administered to the suspect and interpreted by the officer, may be tainted by the positive result on the PBT. Therefore, PBT’s are intended to be “confirmatory” devices once the officer has undertaken other subjective testing.

No one ever has to submit to a PBT roadside. The implied consent law, which states that a driver in New Jersey must submit to breath testing where an officer has reasonable suspicion that he or she is under the influence of alcohol, applies only to evidential breath testing on an approved machine, such as the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C, which is the only approved evidential breath testing machine currently in use in New Jersey.

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If you are charged with refusal to submit to breath testing in a New Jersey DWI / Refusal case, but you don’t speak English well enough to understand the implied consent warning, you may have a defense to the refusal charge. Refusal convictions require proof that the officer requested that you submit to a chemical breath test and informed you of the consequences of refusing to do so. Even though motorists are deemed to have given their consent to submit to breath testing, the officer must still inform the driver of the consequences of refusal.

In a case decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court called State v. Marquez, the Court stated that the obligation to “inform” requires more than a recitation of English words to a non-English speaker. “Knowledge cannot be imparted in that way.” The officer must convey the implied consent warning in a language the person speaks or understands.

The point of the officer advising a driver of the penalties for refusal “is to impel the driver to take the test so that the State will have the evidence necessary to prosecute a DWI charge.” That aim cannot be accomplished, according to the court, by reading words in a language the motorist does not understand.

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