Challenging the Results of a Breathalyzer Test in Ohio DUI / OVI Cases

Ohio OVI attorney Brian Joslyn explains challenging the results of a breathalyzer test in Ohio DUI / OVI cases. Joslyn Law Firm is experienced in defending people accused of OVI offenses in Ohio. If you have been accused of a crime or arrested in Ohio, please call (614) 444-1900 to schedule a free initial consultation to discuss your case.

After performing field sobriety tests, it’s not uncommon for officers to perform additional tests. Most commonly, a breathalyzer. If you don’t refuse, that means that you’re taking a test. And if you’re taking a test, you are giving law enforcement a huge piece of evidence that makes my job much much more difficult in terms of trying to get rid of this case or minimize the case. When you blow into a breathalyzer, you are adding a potential new criminal offense called an OVI per se. In the state of Ohio we have OVi impairment, and if you were for example refuse any chemical testing, they can charge you with impairment which means they have to prove the case based on their observations of you. And if you didn’t perform any field sobriety tests, the only observations they really have of you is your initial encounter when you handed them your ID, and how they looked when they got out of the car and were eventually placed in a police cruiser. Which it makes it very difficult for them to prove OVI cases with such limited evidence. When you blow into a breathalyzer and perform a field sobriety test, they have every little thing that happened in the field sobriety test which certainly, they’ll point out any technicality and embellish any detail they can to show impairment and this test. Which as I said adds an additional charge called an OVI per se. With an OVI per se, they no longer have to prove your impairment by your observations, they can merely prove your impairment by the test itself. And then you’re left with the complexity of trying to attack a test which can be very difficult to do. And experts often have to come into play to invalidate a test like that. And out of common course when there’s a test case, we have to look at the logs of these breathalyzers and determine whether there’s been recent errors or calibrations that might skew or effected that breathalyzer machine specifically. Which does occur, but I will say, it happens on a very small basis. The advice better yet is just don’t take any test at all and ask for an attorney to make that decision