WA high court: DUI breath tests valid, machine results not at fault

EVERETT — A state Supreme Court ruling last week ended two years of confusion over the validity of alcohol breath tests in court cases — a case that sparked worry in Snohomish County over its impact on DUI prosecutions.

In a 2022 Kitsap County District Court case, a judge ruled a machine used to administer alcohol breath tests violated state law by the method it used to calculate its results.

In their 7-2 decision April 4, state Supreme Court justices ruled the machine did not violate state code, because it was not required by law to perform the calculations itself.

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The Kitsap County judge ruled to suppress alcohol breath tests as evidence, because they were produced with Dräger Alcotest 9510 machines. Under state code, the average of four breath tests had to be rounded to four decimal places. But the Washington State Patrol’s Dräger machine calculates the average of the four breath tests and truncates the results, meaning it cuts off numbers, in violation of the rules. The legal limit is 0.08.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/wa-high-court-dui-breath-tests-valid-machine-results-not-at-fault/