The following is a selection transcribed from an episode of DUI Radio featuring Long Beach DUI attorney Okorie Okorocha ("Dr. DUI"). Okorie and the talented attorneys at the California Legal Team are ready to assist you with your Long Beach DUI case today. Call for a free consultation!

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Welcome.  It's Okorie Okorocha, Dr. DUI, board certified criminal trial lawyer DUI specialist.  This is Law Talk Today with Dr. DUI.  Our subject today is DUI.  We're just going to talk about DUIs today.

Let's see.  We have a couple questions that were emailed in, and the first one is from Arlin in Pasadena.  Arlin wants to know about -- let's see.  Well, I'm just going to read it verbatim.  “How accurate are field measurements of blood alcohol level?”

Well, thank you, Arlin.  Arlin is a lawyer and attorney in Pasadena.  And he is a medical malpractice expert.

Well, the field measurements, and I have them on my website if you go to www.cprslaw.com, are breath measurements.  They use different breath testing devices.  One of them is the Draeger Alcotest.  The Draeger Alco Pro Plus, I believe they call it.  It’s the 7410.  Now, that device has since been upgraded, although it’s the 7510.  I have the sample at the office if you want to come and check out the device.  The device they’re using is still the 7410.

Now, when these companies dispense these devices, the other companies called Intoximeters, they have the data master.  Most common is the – I’m sorry, Alco-Sensor 4 Black Dot with Memory.  That’s used throughout the state by highway patrol.  It’s used by many law enforcement agencies.

The 7410 Plus by Draeger is used in Riverside, Santa Barbara and a few other counties.  But statewide the highway patrol uses the Alco-Sensor 4 Black Dot with Memory.  I have several at the office if you want to check them out.

Now, they’ve gone through different Alco-Sensors.  The last Alco-Sensor was in 1980.  That’s the Alco-Sensor 3.  And the Alco-Sensor is almost twice as big and twice as sophisticated.  They now have the Alco-Sensor 5.  The Alco-Sensor 5 is – the L.A. Police Department told me that they have one they’re looking at, and I know the device is in active use in San Diego.

Now, each time these devices come out, they don’t tell us what’s wrong with the first one, and that’s a question that you always want to know.  Why did you have to change it?  And I’ve taken these apart and looked at them, and you can’t always figure it out because you almost need to be an engineer and also have a good familiarity with chemistry.  It’s just one of those things that’s not going to be easy to do.

So we don’t know what changes, but they keep improving the machine, so we know there are flaws.  Now, everybody who is convicted using one of the older Alco-Sensors or Draeger machines is not exonerated later, even though we know that the machine is now flawed because they’ve improved.  If it wasn’t flawed they wouldn’t need to improve it and sell a new one.

These machines are typically $1,000.00, $2,000.00, $3,000.00.  The Draeger’s made in Germany.  The Intoximeter’s in Tennessee and they may have a factory in Kentucky.  Well, these machines, first of all, are not accurate because they measure breath alcohol, and in your breath you’re eliminating alcohol from your blood and eliminating that way.  You also eliminate it through urine and sometimes a little bit through sweat.

Well, if you’re eliminating it, you’re depositing it on your airways.  Now, your airways are lined with mucus and water, and so alcohol deposits all along your airways.  The machines do not account for how much alcohol is deposited on your airways.

Well, the amount of alcohol that’s measured by the breath machine, which is the only field machine they typically use, is actually dependent on how deep a breath you take.  Are you taking a deep breath and sucking in from the bottom of your lungs all the alcohol off the walls of your airways?  All of this very drastically depending on the amount of alcohol you – air you took in, alcohol on the lining of your airways and alcohol that’s actually released.

And the machine assumes that the alcohol in your breath is at equilibrium with your breath and in your body.  So you would need a closed system.

When they do chemical testing, like for blood alcohol in a lab, they use what’s called a Guth simulator, which is a closed system.  And in a closed system such as a vacuum or other system with closed air and nothing getting in and out, you can assume that due to osmosis and diffusion, everything is at equilibrium with the water, the air, the alcohol. 

But when you have an open system that goes to the open area like your mouth, you have no idea how much alcohol you’re actually depositing, how much alcohol is being swept up when you breathe out, and you’re not – the sample you take, these machines only measure 1 milliliter.  So you actually don’t know at all how much alcohol you’re actually getting in your little measurement.  So you’re actually just basically taking a guess.

Furthermore, it is such a small sample that’s taken, 1 milliliter, the result is given in terms of 210 – I’m sorry, 210 liters, which is 210,000 times the amount of the amount tested.  So the amount of alcohol you’re actually saying is there is just based on such a tiny sample.  It would be like sampling a small town in Indiana and saying, well, this is how many people are in the United States, which we know is not true.  So it’s just too small a sample to go by.

So for various reasons, because the air is not equilibrium, we don’t know the gas exchange in the lungs and what’s going on with all the gas exchanged in the airways.  This test is just simply just a guess.  And these tests really should only be used for determining if there is alcohol present, not the amount of alcohol.

Now, there’s several other things wrong with these tests.  For example, these companies fight the release of the source code, which show how machines work.  They say it’s proprietary, but it’s mostly because these things are made of junk, okay.  Just junk.  I’ve taken them apart.  There isn’t a whole lot going on.  Some of the ones, the desktop ones used at the station I’ve taken apart.  They have these – basically they are fans that right on top of the tubes that take the air in.  Well, this would condense everything, condense the air and the alcohol and make the sample stronger.

So basically they’re inaccurate.  Now, if you do get pulled over you’re not required to take this test, and I would not take the test.  I would only take a breath test at the station.  And the reason I say take a breath test because if you are going to be cooperating with the police or being subjected to search, which you are just because you have a driver’s license, which I have constitutional issues with, you will be giving them the worst test you possibly can because you are under investigation.

So you definitely should say I want the breath test because for the reasons I’ve explained, it’s flawed, and it can be attacked.  One of the world’s leading authorities on the issue is Dr. Michael Hlastala, that’s H-L-A-S-T-A-L-A.  And you can find him at MP – Michael Paul Hlastala, Henry, Larry, Apple, Sam, Terry, Apple, Lawrence, Apple dot com.  And you can also find him on my website.  I usually reference him.  And my website, CPRS, Charles, Paul, Richard, Simon, Law dot com.