Faulty breathalyzers spur review of 100s of drunken-driving cases

Published 5:00 am Sunday, April 24, 2011

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors in Ventura County will review nearly 300 drunken-driving cases because of problems with a type of breathalyzer used by agencies throughout the county since January.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve suspended doing anything with cases involving these machines,” Deputy District Attorney Michael Frawley said last week.

Frawley said an unknown number of pending cases would be dropped. In 157 of the cases that will be reviewed, defendants have pleaded guilty or no contest.

“It stands to reason,” Frawley said, “that there will be some cases where this was the primary piece of evidence.”

But in many arrests, the hand-held Alco-Sensor V was only a “preliminary screening device,” with other tests used to derive blood-alcohol readings, he said.

Defense attorney Darryl Genis said the problem with the devices, acquired with the aid of a state grant, was more systemic than acknowledged by county officials, who said erratic readings had been spotted in only a handful of machines.

‘Half-million on junk’

“They spent a half-million on a bunch of junk, basically,” said Genis, whose entire practice is DUI defense.

The St. Louis-based manufacturer, Intoximeters Inc., was closed Friday, and executives could not be reached for comment.

But in a letter to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, Chief Executive M. Rankine Forrester said that preliminary testing suggested a problem in the device’s mouthpiece, which, he said, will be redesigned and subjected to more rigorous testing.