DUI Los Angeles

Breath & Blood Tests

When pulled over for DUI in California, police may try to get you take a breath test. What many people do not realize is that in California breath tests before the DUI arrest at the side of the road are completely voluntary. These tests are known as preliminary alcohol screening tests and should be avoided.

California drunk driving law allows people arrested for DUI to refuse breath testing and take a blood test.

Breath tests are the most common chemical tests in DUI cases in California. Police officers often encourage arrestees to take breath tests. Officers prefer breath tests because

• It takes less time for an officer to complete a breath test than to arrange for a blood test.

• Most police officers have been trained to give breath tests.

• With a blood test, police officers have to arrange for a phlebotomist to meet them at the county jail, or take the arrested person to the hospital.

Also, police officers often tell persons arrested for drunk driving that they will let them go if they take a breath test and the results are under the legal limit. However, the police do not say they will not be charged with violating California drunk driving law 23152 (a), driving under the influence of alcohol, only they will be released if the test comes under 0.08%.

Breath tests are the most common chemical tests in DUI cases in California. Police officers often encourage breath tests. Officers prefer breath tests because:

• It takes less time for a breath test than for a blood test.

• Most police officers can give breath tests themselves.

• Police officers have to arrange for a phlebotomist to meet them at the county jail, or take the arrested person to the hospital.

Also, police officers often tell persons arrested for drunk driving that they will let them go if they take a breath test and the results are under the legal limit. However, the police do not tell arrestees they will not be charged with violating California drunk driving law 23152 (a), driving under the influence of alcohol.

However, if a breath test result shows alcohol in your system, you will be probably be arrested and face criminal charges and DMV consequences.

If you took a breath test and were later charged with DUI in California, now is the time to speak with DUI Defense attorney Richard Wagner. Even though your blood alcohol concentration may have read 0.08% or higher at the time you blew into the breathalyzer, you still can defend yourself against police and prosecutors by working with an experienced California DUI attorney.

Because breath testing involves measuring microscopic amounts of alcohol, it is vital that everything involving the breath test be done with precision and pursuant to established procedures—small variances in procedures can result in huge variances in results.

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Science And Alcohol

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. However, before for alcohol effects the brain, the alcohol must be absorbed into the body and circulate through the blood stream. Ingested alcohol that has not yet been absorbed has no neurological effects and cannot cause driving impairment.

Absorption takes place at different rates, depending on a number of factors. Some factors include:

• The presence or absence of food in the stomach. The amount and type of food present in the intestinal system has the most effect upon the rate of absorption. Scientific studies show drinking alcohol on an empty stomach is absorbed by most people within 15 minutes to 2.5 hours. Drinking alcohol with some food, the range increases to 30 minutes to 3 hours. Drinking alcohol on a full stomach, the rate of absorption ranges from 3 to 6 hours have been reported in the scientific literature.The alcohol concentration of the beverage.
• The absorption of alcohol is not the same for all kinds of liquor. Mixed drinks are generally absorbed faster than neat spirits. Drinks high in sugar have a delayed absorption rate.
• The rate of consumption. Some scientific studies show that the speed in which alcohol is consumed plays an important part in alcohol peak levels and times. Social drinking often results in drinking alcohol over an extended period of time. Some scientific studies have shown that Social drinking may result in a faster absorption time.
• The person's emotional state. Alcohol absorption is impaired during trauma because of reduced gut blood flow. Trauma, shock and fear divert blood flow from the stomach and small intestine, and often decrease the ability of stomach contents to move.

How do breath & blood tests work?

DUI Lawyers know law enforcement give breath and/or blood tests, to get circumstantial evidence that you were DUI by measuring the percentage of alcohol in your bloodstream.

In California, people are considered drunk drivers if they are impaired or under the influence or when their blood alcohol concentration is 0.08%, or higher. That is when you get arrested for DUI. However, you can fight back.

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Blood Tests

If you took a blood test in California, the lab prepares or buys blood collection kits, including the chemicals used for cleansing the skin. The blood must be drawn in a medically approved manner by a person qualified to draw the blood. Questions often arise whether the blood collection kits had anti-coagulant and preservative in the blood tube or vial before the blood was drawn.

DUI lawyers want to know where did your blood go after it was drawn? This chain of custody must be documented to show your blood was taken straight from your arm to the lab. Usually, forensic alcohol labs in Southern California use gas chromatograph analysis for blood samples.

Direct injection chromatography injects the sample directly into a heated injector port, which instantly vaporizes the sample into a complex gaseous mixture to be separated.

The second, and most common method of gas chromatograph analysis for DUIs in California is Headspace Gas Chromatography. The chemist places the blood sample into a small vial, and loads it into a carousel holding several other vials that are placed in the gas chromatograph for a single run.

DUI lawyers know the process of analyzing blood for alcohol content by the gas chromatograph device begins before the machine analyzes the blood sample.

Preparing the blood sample to be analyzed by the gas chromatograph machine requires several steps. The DUI attorneys job is to check to make sure the identifying information on the blood sample corresponds to its packaging. Next, the blood sample in a DUI case problems such as leaks, clotting, and fermentation.

If the volume (or amount of blood) of the blood sample is different from the known alcohol standards, then the results will be invalid. All vials must contain the same volume of liquid for the test to be reliable.

The blood specimens should be rocked or gently inverted. The blood vials contain a preservative sodium fluoride. Unless the blood tech inverts the vial to mix the preservative into the sample, the preservative is ineffective.

To eliminate the risk of mix-up of samples and to ensure a high quality control of the results, the gas chromatograph vials must be loaded in the machine correctly and clearly identified.

Fermentation Defense

Alcoholic beverages are made by fermentation. It is the product of mixing yeast and grape juice. Blood is like grape juice because it contains glucose, a sugar. If contaminated by a microorganism, blood may ferment. If you took a blood test contamination and fermentation could have occurred, causing a false high alcohol result. The blood may be contaminated various ways: the equipment may not have been sterile and the vacuum seals of the blood vials must be checked.

Blood may be contaminated by organisms on the outside of the gray rubber stopper when the blood technician - who may or may not have been careful - inserted the needle through the septum for injection into the vial.

Blood vials are often transported to the crime lab in hot cars and not always refrigerated. Scientific studies show refrigeration is crucial to avoid fermentation.

Breath Tests

If you took a breath test there are there are several breath testing machines on the market: Intoximeter 3000, Intoximeter ECIR, Intoxilyzer 5000 (EN), Intoxilyzer 8000, Draeger 7410, Draeger 7110 MK-III, Alco-Sensor III, Alco-Sensor IV, Alco-Sensor IV-XL.

The technology behind breath testing is either a fuel cell, infrared detection, a Taguchi semiconductor, or a combination of infrared detection and fuel cell. The most common breath testing applications use infrared spectrophotometry, electrochemical oxidation/fuel cells and metal-oxide semiconductor. Some breath testing machines use both infrared spectrophotometry and electrochemical oxidation/fuel cells technologies.

Whether your chemical test was a blood test or breath test or you took both, your DUI criminal defense attorney must know what do with the maintenance, calibration and subject data records on the machine to fight your DUI.

California drunk driving law requires a calibration check to be performed every 10 days or every 150 subjects tested, whichever occurs first. But all an accurate calibration check establishes is that the breath machine was working fine at the specific time the laboratory performed the calibration check. Unless the check was done at the same time as the test on the defendant, it does not conclusively prove that the breath machine was working at the critical hour of the defendant's test.

In some cases, the results of your breath or blood test are unreliable. You need a DUI defense attorney who knows how to use the discovery of this information to get your charges reduced or even dismissed.

To learn more about how these Criminal Lawyers with over 80 years of combined experience can help you challenge the results of your breath and blood tests, contact the Southern California DUI defense lawyers now!