An appeals-court decision delivered Friday largely upholds a Monroe County Court ruling that limits local prosecutors' use of machine breath-test results in many drunk-driving cases.


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Circuit Court Judge David Audlin upheld an earlier ruling by county Judge Peary Fowler that the state must be able to prove that results from the Intoxilyzer 8000 breath-testing machine are accurate. "The state has become so reliant on this thing they bought but they can't show how the magic box works," said defense attorney Hal Schuhmacher of Marathon. "That turns the whole [justice] system on its head by giving the state a presumption of guilt." Last year, Fowler ruled that results of DUI tests from the Intoxilyzer 8000 were open to question because a Florida Department of Law Enforcement inspector, since fired, schemed "to deliberately falsify unfavorable information and test results of the instrument knowing that the inner workings [of the machine] would not be available to the public for review...." Audlin wrote that "systematic falsification of these records had occurred on a statewide basis, including in Monroe County."

Source: Judge's ruling could put DUI breath tests at risk

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