As we have previously noted in our blogs (e.g., please see March 15 blog post), DUI stops across Georgia and elsewhere throughout the country often involve legitimate questions regarding due process and police and prosecutorial conduct, the reliability of testing equipment used to determine a person's blood alcohol content ("BAC") and other matters. An experienced defense attorney can be a strong advocate who ensures that a motorist's legal rights are fully protected if he or she faces a DUI charge.
The importance of securing strong counsel can hardly be overestimated in light of the nature and severity of problematic issues that regularly arise in drunk driving stops. Our March 15 post, for example, put a spotlight on the Intoxilyzer 5000EN machine commonly used by police officers in Minnesota to test alleged drunk drivers for BAC. The problem: More than 4,000 DUI cases were put on hold after evidence emerged concerning reliability issues with the machine.
Further and compelling evidence regarding faulty testing equipment used by police officers to convict motorists of DUI now emerges from Philadelphia, where Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey openly admits, "We screwed up, plain and simple."
The error involved the calibration of five breathalyzer machines, which subsequent testing revealed to be improperly set. The result was that, over a 14-month period from September 2009 through November 2010, more than 1,400 innocent people were possibly convicted for drunk driving. At least 1,147 of them have had their convictions dropped and will now be retried without the breathalyzer evidence. Some of them are expected to sue the city.
Ramsey seems sincerely contrite about what happened. "The error was human error," he says. "It is inexcusable. Period. Should not have happened."
Related Resource: Philadelphia Daily News "City fails breathalyzer test in 1,400 cases" March 24, 2011
