San Diego DUI criminal defense attorneys have been trying to uncover suspected problems with the Intoxilyzer machines for years.
DC DUI enforcement officials knew the machines were reading high but publicly would say only that they had recently become aware of a potential problem with the accuracy of its alcohol Intoxilyzer machines.
Oh, is that why they started mysteriously dismissing DUI / Drunk Driving cases without telling everyone.
What they are saying now is DC will begin replacing its CMI Inc. Intoxilyzer machines with another company, Intoximeters, Inc. machines.
The Intoxilyzer in DC had at least 2 principal concerns. The first is that the person who calibrated the DUI / Drunk Driving machines set the machines to read 20% to 40% high. The DUI / Drunk Driving officials finally admitted this today and has agreed that the machines were set to read high at least as far back as two years ago.
A second concern is that the DUI / Drunk Driving machines were never tested for accuracy. Because no accuracy testing was done, calibration issues could not be found by DUI / Drunk Driving criminal defense lawyers.
The DUI / Drunk Driving machines were not tested for accuracy since before 1995, and the machines may have never been tested for accuracy. 2 years ago, the government was informed by their own DUI / Drunk Driving expert of the lack of accuracy testing and they decided to just ignore the DUI / Drunk Driving expert and not fix the DUI / Drunk Driving problem. This is why all important safety protocols must be followed before DUI / Drunk Driving convictions are sought.
They had had three problems with regard to DUI / Drunk Driving calibration. First, they treated calibrating the DUI / Drunk Driving machine as if that was testing the machine for accuracy. One can turn the knob on the scales so that the line is over the 0 when nothing is on the scale, which “calibrates” the scales but to know if the scales work one has to put a known weight on the scale to see if the scales can accurately identify the weight. These DUI / Drunk Driving officials never took the last step to confirm accuracy.
In making the DUI / Drunk Driving machines read high, the DUI / Drunk Driving government officials entered an incorrect number for the solutions they used to calibrate the the DUI / Drunk Driving Intoxilyzer. During calibration one can tell the DUI / Drunk Driving Intoxilyzer the value of the solution being entered into the machine. The DUI / Drunk Driving Intoxilyzer uses that value to establish a baseline for the sample then entered.
If you are using a .10 solution, one tells the DUI / Drunk Driving machine this is what a .10 solution looks like; make the adjustments so that when you see this in the future you identify it as a .10. The DUI / Drunk Driving machine then calibrates itself accordingly.
But if one tells the DUI / Drunk Driving machine that the value of the solution is say a .13 but one is really only using a .10 solution then miscalibration will cause the machine to label future .10 samples as .13. So the DUI / Drunk Driving machine is set to read high. So if one enters the GC value of the alcohol in the liquid (.13) as opposed to the GC value of the alcohol in the air (.10) above the liquid, the DUI / Drunk Driving machine would be set to read high during the calibration process.
This high reading would not be caught by DUI / Drunk Driving criminal defense attorneys unless the DUI / Drunk Driving machine was tested for accuracy following the calibration process. This error would have been caught if the DUI / Drunk Driving government officials had been tested for accuracy.
This DUI / Drunk Driving problem is compounded by the allegations that they were mixing many of their own solutions up, using the DUI / Drunk Driving Intoxilyzer to confirm that the solutions were correct, and never testing the solutions independently on a GC.
These DUI / Drunk Driving machines were intentionally set high, but a simple typo could possibly cause a machine to be set high without being caught during the DUI / Drunk Driving calibration process especially if only one solution was used to calibrate the DUI / Drunk Driving machine. The miscalibration should then be caught in the accuracy testing phase if this DUI / Drunk Driving process is done properly.
The voltages can also be changed inside the DUI / Drunk Driving machine to match the ethanol solution. If the DC DUI / Drunk Driving government officials DUI / Drunk Driving made the solution incorrectly and changed the voltages, then the If they made the solution incorrectly and changed the voltages, then the machine will give an incorrect value for all DUI breath tests.
Remember: “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you.”