Tag Archives: breath alcohol test

In Missouri, voters passed Amendment 3 on November 8, 2022. The constitutional amendment   allows for recreational marijuana use. Recreational marijuana may substantially affect police investigations as well as DWI enforcement. Police officers have long used the ubiquitous “odor of marijuana” to justify searches of vehicles. Driving While Intoxicated charges are commonly brought when an officer suspects smells marijuana on a driver and suspects marijuana intoxication. What is marijuana intoxication? At what level does marijuana use affect safe driving? These are ... Read More »

By The Associated Press • Published May 9, 2022 • Updated on May 9, 2022 at 10:41 am Photo: Ormond Beach Police Department A World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer is accused in the DUI death of man in a traffic crash earlier this year, authorities said. Tamara “Sunny” Sytch was arrested Friday night at the Hard Rock Hotel in Daytona Beach, according to a social media post by the Ormond Beach Police Department. The March 25 crash in Ormond ... Read More »

source News4JAX: FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – A bus driver for the Flagler County School District was arrested after he drove middle school students home while under the influence of alcohol, according to a news release Thursday from the county Sheriff’s Office. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said the driver, Mark McNeil, 60, was booked into jail shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday and had a blood alcohol content level of .32 and .31, which is four times the legal limit in ... Read More »

In Missouri driving while intoxicated (DWI) cases, police officers are required to follow certain standards. Standards are in place in an attempt to bring some degree of scientific certainty to testing procedures. Breath testing machines have been subject to weak oversight regarding testing standards. The result can be wrongful convictions. The Missouri Code of State Regulations (19 CSR 25-30) specifies the standards that should be followed when testing the accuracy of breath testing devices. If the standards are not followed, ... Read More »

by: Amy Phillips Posted: Feb 2, 2021 CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP)–A Massachusetts court has ordered that defendants in drunk driving convictions be notified that they can return to court and request that their conviction be overturned in the appropriate circumstances. Twenty-seven thousand notices will be sent to individuals across the state who were prosecuted with a breath test result. In January 2019, after learning of the intentional misconduct of the Office of Alcohol Testing (OAT), the Court held that a class ... Read More »

Jan. 23, 2021, 8:51 PM EST / Source: TODAY By Francesca Gariano Instagram (Justin Beiber Official Page) Justin Bieber is reflecting seven years after his arrest in Miami Beach on Jan. 23, 2014. Beiber was charged with DUI, resisting arrest without violence, and an expired driver’s license. The 26-year-old singer admitted that he was not proud of where he was in his life at age 19 sharing a photo of his arrest on Instagram, above, using the caption to look ... Read More »

Massachusetts defense attorneys and prosecutors have reached a tentative agreement, pending approval and modification by the court, regarding sanctions imposed against the government for refusing to disclose court-ordered evidence during state-wide litigation challenging the reliability of the Dräger 9510 breath test machines. Under a previous court order, breath tests results were presumptively excluded from evidence at trial if the machine had last been calibrated between June 1, 2011 and September 14, 2014. As a result of government misconduct, however, where ... Read More »

District Attorney offices throughout the Commonwealth continue negotiations with representatives of the defense bar regarding the admissibility of breath test results at trial. Some possibilities include expanding the time of presumptively excluded breath tests to include all tests performed since the Dräger 9510 machines were put into service in 2012 through at least 2017. Another potential outcome is to give both prosecutors and defense counsel online access to all maintenance and service records for each machine. We expect that all ... Read More »

In Commonwealth v. Nascimento, SJC-12442 (June 5, 2018) the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently corrected a long-standing practice of the lower courts sentencing drivers operating on a license suspended for administrative reasons related to OUI (such as breath test failure or refusal) to the same mandatory jail time required for someone operating on a license suspended for an OUI conviction. The statute mandates a minimum sixty-day sentence for anyone convicted of operating on a license that has been suspended on ... Read More »

The latest hearing regarding the Massachusetts defense bar’s challenge to the Dräger 9510 breath test machine was held by Judge Brennan in Concord on Thursday, February 15, 2018. At that hearing, both Brennan and the defense bar, represented by Joseph Bernard, expressed their dismay that discovery previously withheld by the government continued to trickle out or had even been lost “due to dysfunction at the OAT [Office of Alcohol Testing].” The government pressed Brennan for a schedule that would give ... Read More »