THE RISING BLOOD ALCOHOL DEFENSE

When I first look at a drunk driving charge, I immediately look to see what the blood alcohol BAC score was on either the Datamaster machine, or the blood test.  This is important because when one drinks alcohol, the body doesn’t automatically absorb the alcohol into the blood.  Instead, my expert has testified that it could take up to three hours after the last drink is drank before the blood alcohol hits its “peak level.”  This means that you could have your last drink, drive your car five minutes later, get pulled over, have a 0.07 BAC, then forty-five minutes later, blow a 0.11 on the Datamaster machine.

HOW ALCOHOL ABSORBS INTO THE BODY

My drunk driver toxicologist Expert who I use can tell you at great length the science behind how alcohol is absorbed into the blood.  This is a complex process which involves different parts of the body doing different things.  Further, there are many separate factors which control how long it takes the alcohol to enter the blood, and how long it takes the alcohol to leave the blood.  This process is important in your drinking and driving trial, but I have found that having your expert describe the process of alcohol absorbing into the blood to be the way to present this to the jury.

YOUR BLOOD ALCOHOL SCORE IS LIKE A ROLLER COASTER

Say you and I sit down and each drink 5 shots of Jagermeister.  What will happen is that the alcohol will be absorbed into the body and eventually our blood.  After a half-hour, if we checked our blood alcohol contents, we would see that yours may be different than mine.  A half-hour later and we check the scores again, your BAC may be going down, while mine might still be going up.  Things that will cause this include what is in our stomachs, say for instance I ate a big meal beforehand and you did not.

RETROGRADE EXTRAPOLATION

This pseudo-scientific theory is what both the prosecutor, as well as the defense sometimes, will use to explain what somebody’s blood alcohol score was at the time of the driving of the vehicle.  Because alcohol tests normally take place an hour or two after the driving is observed, many times the alcohol reading at the time of the alleged impaired or drunk driving is in controversy.  I have had the Michigan State Toxicologist try and convince the jury that my client’s 0.06 blood alcohol score on a blood test 2 ½ hours after driving was a 0.12 BAC during the driving, even though the video of the stop clearly showed the client was cold sober.  Needlesstosay, the jury didn’t buy the prosecutor’s claims.