Texas DWI Defense Attorney Says Breath Testing is Often Unreliable


It’s the holiday season, and with all of the celebrating going on, it can be easy to forget that law enforcement agencies increase their patrols at this time of year. Thanksgiving often produces more drunk driving arrests than other notorious party days like St. Patrick’s Day and even Super Bowl Sunday. As you know, not every driver who is arrested for and charged with DWI is guilty. If you are arrested for DWI this holiday season, remember that connecting with a Texas DWI attorney is the best way to protect the things that are most important to you. Your Texas DWI defense attorney knows how to examine the circumstances of your DWI arrest and develop a strong defense strategy for you.

One element of a strong DWI defense is knowing how to challenge the evidence that the State plans to present in your case. If your DWI defense attorney can show the court that one or more pieces of evidence that the State intends to present in your DWI case are inaccurate or otherwise not valid, the court may prohibit the use of that evidence in the State’s case against you. Evidentiary challenges have the potential to weaken the State’s case against a defendant, sometimes even to the extent that the State finds itself with so little evidence that it must dismiss its case.

Many drivers arrested for DWI submit to breath testing either during the traffic stop that leads to their arrest or after the arrest. If you are facing DWI charges and breath testing occurred at some point during your traffic stop or after your arrest, your defense attorney may be able to challenge the validity of the results of those tests. Even better, their challenge may be successful, and the test results might be thrown out. A recent article by the New York Times reports that tens of thousands of DWI cases across America have been tossed out of court because the test results were shown to be inaccurate.

For years, alcohol breath test results have been viewed as “truths” by juries in Texas and across America. Many DWI defendants were unaware that they could question the test results, but that is changing. Some DWI defendants, with the aid of their attorneys, challenged the validity of their breath test results. Some of those who challenged their test results prevailed. Their victories paved the way for an increased public demand for research into the accuracy of breath testing devices and the validity of the results produced by those devices. Study after study has shown how vulnerable the sensitive machines used for breath testing are to user error, calibration error, and other types of failures that are attributable to the users of the devices or the devices themselves.

Breath testing for blood alcohol content is a process that is prone to errors. If you were arrested for DWI and you submitted to breath testing during your traffic stop or after your arrest, it is critical that you contact a Texas DWI defense attorney right away. Your Texas DWI defense attorney can examine the circumstances of your traffic stop and DWI arrest and build a solid defense strategy on your behalf. Call Texas Criminal Defense Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499.