Claiborne Ferguson is THE Memphis DUI lawyer, with his practice, the Claiborne Ferguson Law Firm in Memphis, Tennessee, devoted to DUI defense and capital murder cases. Both require a vast knowledge of science and law, which is why he has extensive training in both areas. Here, he explains why failing a Breathalyzer test does not always mean a DUI conviction.
Even if you did blow, there are ways to attack the breath test. The first thing that we as DUI attorneys do is to attack the reason why the officer stopped you in the first place. If the stop was not supported by probable cause or was unconstitutional, the breath test is not admissible against you in court.
If the machine was not properly calibrated when the officer was giving the test, or if the officer was not properly trained, then the results could be suppressed as unreliable. If the test was not given within a certain length of time of the initial stop, it can be invalid, and even factors such as the air temperature and radio frequency can be used to explain false readings of the Breathalyzer.
Mandatory Testing and Procedures
Also, if the officer did not follow the mandatory testing and procedures, the state may not be able to have the results admitted against you in trial. A good DUI defense attorney will know from talking to a client whether this is the case or not, and if the results can be used or not when it all comes to court.
Furthermore, there is an argument among DUI defense attorneys presently being used in court to argue that the use of the machine itself is unconstitutional. Because we are not given access to the source code of the computer and have no way to cross-examine or confront the people who built the machine, we are arguing that we cannot use the findings in court.
The Right Attorney
A good defense attorney will have the ability to evaluate your individual case for any number of unconstitutional inaccuracies admitted by the arresting officer or the state crime lab in an effort to deal with discrediting the BAC, or blood alcohol content, found as a result of the Breathalyzer test. He can potentially even be able to exclude it from any proceedings against you.
So you can see how important it is to hire the right DUI attorney, even if you think everything is all cut and dried following your failure of a Breathalyzer test. It might be a lot more complicated than you think.
