DUI
New Mexico Appeals Court Agrees With DWI Defense
New Mexico Appeals Court Agrees With DWI Defense
A decision made by a New Mexico Appeals Court has improved the chances of a successful DWI defense in cases where the blood alcohol content is close to the legal limit.
The court overturned the DWI conviction of John Day based on evidence that his BAC may have been less than .08 at the time of his arrest. Day was stopped for a burned out lightbulb over his license plate. There was no sign that he was driving while impaired. Police noticed an open beer in the car and subsequently ordered Day to perform a field sobriety test. He was arrested and taken to a police station for booking. It was then that a breath test was conducted showing Day was right at the legal threshold of .08 BAC. He was convicted in court based on that evidence.
Day’s New Mexico DWI defense attorneys cited in their appeal that 66 minutes had passed between the initial traffic stop and the time of the breath test. Since blood alcohol readings increase as alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream, defense attorneys argued that the .08 did not accurately reflect Day’s BAC at the time he was driving. The appeals court ruled that that evidence should not have been ignored by the prosecution during Day’s DWI trial and they overturned his conviction.
"We hold that absent scientific evidence of the alcohol absorption and elimination processes tied to facts that must be considered in scientifically evaluating the alcohol absorption rate of a particular driver, the jury could not have rationally inferred that defendant had a .08 alcohol content at the time of driving," Judge Jonathan A. Sutin wrote for the court in a 3-0 decision.
It was recommended by the judges that a "retrograde extrapolation" equation be used to estimate blood alcohol levels that account for the time of alcohol consumption and other relevant factors. This places a new difficulty of proof on prosecutors that may impact New Mexico DWI arrests and DWI defense procedures across the state.
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Posted
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Filed in DUI News | New Mexico DUI | Permalink | Comments (0)
Filed in DUI News | New Mexico DUI | Permalink | Comments (0)
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