Florida DUI: The Troubled Background Of The Intoxilyzer 8000

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

Florida first used the Intoxilyzer 8000, the machine that conducts breath tests, in March 2006 and issues have been litigated with it from the very beginning, according to David Katz, a Florida attorney whose practice focuses in the areas of DUI and criminal defense and a former Intoxilyzer Specialist with the State of Florida.

Flaws in the machine

Katz explained why the breath test using the Intoxilyzer 8000 may be flawed:

The first evidentiary machine in Florida used software version 8100.26. That’s when I was with the State Attorney’s Office. While we were fighting the battle to keep evidence admissible, we received a letter from the head of the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) saying that there was a problem with the software such as giving inaccurate results and missing instructions. Attached to the letter was a list of some three or four hundred cases where the head of the alcohol testing program had gone through all the test results and found ones that were reported as scientifically valid, even though there wasn’t enough volume in the instrument for it to make a proper reading.

Come to find out, the instrument wasn’t flagging those. They changed the software version to 8100.27 and said the problems were solved. However, since the new software has come into use, there are now some anomalies the instrument. We’ve found hundreds, possibly thousands, of cases where a person’s breath volume was over the minimum mandatory amount which were flagged as ‘volume not met.’

Unfortunately, the breath test operator does not see the volume. That is only reported to a centralized computer system in Tallahassee and we can only get it later. So, the breath test operator is seeing “volume not met,” and they’re claiming that the person refused to take the test because they didn’t blow hard enough.

Drivers unfairly losing licenses

Katz says that the state is calling it a refusal and people are losing their driver’s licenses for refusing to take the test even though they tried to take it – and he says it isn’t fair. “They did everything they were supposed to do right and the instrument said that their volume wasn’t enough even though it was.”

He provided another example, “There are breath test results where the instrument shows a breath/alcohol content with a volume of .000, which means it’s showing alcohol in the machine even though nobody blew into it. However, volume isn’t on the breath test affidavit, but those breath test results are appearing on people’s result readings, even though there’s no breath in the instrument.”

If you have questions about a DUI in Florida, contact an experienced Florida DUI lawyer to discuss your situation and evaluate your options. Consultations are free, without obligation and are strictly confidential.

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Jeffrey Johnson

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Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

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