Is the breathalyzer accurate?
Sometimes the breathalyzer is accurate, sometimes it’s not. It’s important for your attorney to look at the way the machine was maintained. We look at the logs. If we need to, we can hire an expert who can actually break down the logs even further, and look to see if the machine was maintained over the longer period of time. There’s been some recent activity in the law, where we’re attempting to gather the codes that run the machine, to see if the computer side of the machine is calculating things accurately.
The other issue to look at as to whether or not it’s accurate is, was there the proper procedures put in place? In other words, did they wait the sufficient amount of time observing you to make sure that there was no belching or hiccups that would bring alcohol from your stomach into your mouth that, that would then discredit machine as far as, is it measuring your blood alcohol level or just your surface alcohol level? Is the machine accurate? Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not. That’s why it’s important to have an attorney.