Court Allows Challenge Of Breath-Alcohol Results

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that defendants in drunken driving cases can challenge the accuracy of specific breath-alcohol results. The court also says that defendants can question whether specific machines operated properly at the time of the test. The court's unanimous decision Wednesday came in the case of man arrested in Cincinnati in 2011 and accused of having a blood-alcohol content of 0.143, well above the legal limit of 0.08. The court says that while Ohio law prohibits challenges of the general reliability of state-approved testing machines, it does not prevent someone from challenging the reliability of a specific machine. The decision said nothing prevents the Cincinnati defendant from trying to show that the Intoxilyzer 8000 provided an inaccurate result.