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As soon as a police officer pulls you over, their investigation begins in earnest – looking for evidence suggesting you were driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
An experienced DUI defense attorney can identify and exploit crucial weaknesses in your case, including issues surrounding chemical tests’ accuracy. Here are some tips for navigating this important aspect of DUI defense:
1. Examine the Breathalyzer’s Maintenance Records
Breath test devices are complex pieces of machinery that require regular calibration and maintenance for proper functioning. Failure to abide by these rules may produce inaccurate results that render breathalyzer tests unreliable as evidence of your blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Your attorney can use various means to challenge their validity, including requesting maintenance logs, cross-examining law enforcement officers and providing expert testimony against breathalyzer tests.
Your legal team will examine any medications or substances you took in the days leading up to your breathalyzer test that could interfere with its accuracy, such as acid reflux medications or mouthwash containing alcohol; low-carb diets could also register false positives. By unearthing such information, they’ll cast doubt upon the accuracy of your breath test results.
If you refused the Sandy Springs DUI officer’s chemical test or had results that exceeded legal limits, Georgia law mandates that their police agency serve you with notice of an administrative license suspension action. By responding swiftly and properly, this separate action can increase your chance of keeping driving privileges.
2. Examine the Blood Test’s Chain of Custody
DUI blood tests must abide by certain guidelines for them to have any value in court, which includes collecting, storing, transporting and testing samples in an efficient manner. Failure to abide by such protocols constitutes a serious offense and could provide grounds for challenging the accuracy of blood test results.
Skilled Sandy Springs DUI lawyers may be able to successfully challenge your charges by identifying errors in the chain of custody. For instance, they might argue that blood samples were compromised during collection or transport or were improperly preserved or refrigerated – all factors which can make a case stronger against conviction.
An experienced defense attorney will cross-examine law enforcement officers and laboratory technicians in order to uncover any gaps in the chain of custody that could impact the outcome of your case.
An alcohol or drug DUI conviction can have far-reaching repercussions in your life, from restricting employment opportunities and costing hundreds in fines, to jeopardizing driving privileges. But you can avoid conviction by consulting a Sandy Springs DUI lawyer as soon as possible.
3. Examine the Blood Test’s Results
When defending against DUI cases that require blood tests, it’s essential to assess the possibility of contamination. Contamination could lead to falsely elevated BAC readings that undermine prosecution’s case against you. Defense attorneys can challenge blood test results by inspecting its chain of custody or calling in expert witnesses.
Example: If a sample’s container wasn’t sealed properly or was broken by an unauthorized individual, environmental contaminants can enter and compromise test results. Furthermore, improper storage could have led to fermentation that artificially increased BAC levels.
If drug testing results showed the presence of an unlisted substance, defense attorneys can bring in a forensic toxicologist to dispute government expert testimony and show that blood test results were inaccurate and thus should be suppressed. It’s also essential to address any license suspension actions properly as failure to do so could mean losing driving privileges for an entire year.
4. Examine the Breathalyzer’s Calibration
Breathalyzer machines require regular calibration and maintenance in order to produce accurate results, so an attorney should review its maintenance records to detect any lapses that might compromise its accuracy.
Test results may also be affected by environmental elements like temperature and humidity. Defense attorneys can seek expert testimony or cross-examination in order to demonstrate how such elements may have altered the readings from the machine.
At the same time, breathalyzer manufacturers may have known that certain models were more prone to errors than others; an experienced DUI lawyer can use this knowledge against breathalyzer results in court.
Field sobriety tests such as the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus Test and Walk and Turn Test aim to detect indicators of intoxication without testing a suspect’s breath or blood. Defense attorneys may challenge the validity of such tests by asserting that physical factors or other circumstances contributed to symptoms like slurred speech or unsteady movements, which were misconstrued as signs of alcohol intoxication. They could also contend that certain foods or medical conditions might interfere with test accuracy and require expert witness testimony as proof.
5. Examine the Blood Test’s Results
Once blood samples are taken, forensic toxicologists employ gas chromatography to analyze their alcohol concentration. There may be various ways this result can be compromised and an experienced attorney can use these weaknesses against the prosecution’s case.
An improperly stored blood sample could ferment and create an artificially elevated reading on a device, creating reasonable doubt about its accuracy and undermining prosecution’s case. A defense attorney can highlight any lapses in chain of custody to cast doubt upon test accuracy and reduce prosecution’s case burden.
Sandy Springs DUI lawyers can also help defend you against administrative license suspension through the Office of State Administrative Hearings (OSAH). To preserve your driving privileges and ensure the best chance at avoiding license suspension proceedings, it’s imperative that this hearing takes place within 30 days following arrest.
