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Scientific Truth vs Legal Expediency: Presuming Guilt in DUI Cases

By Lawrence Taylor

The drunk driving laws make it a criminal offense to drive a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol (DUI) or while having a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08% or higher. It is not, however, a criminal offense to be under the influence or to have a BAC of .08% while taking a breath test in a police station an hour or two after driving. So how does the prosecution prove what the BAC was when the defendant was driving? It's a problem… They can try to guess what the BAC was in a DUI case — by projecting backwards, using average alcohol absorption and elimination rates, but it's only a very inaccurate guess. The process is called retrograde extrapolation — a fancy name for trying to guess back in time. The problem is that everyone has a different metabolism, and even a given person will metabolize alcohol at different rates at different times depending on many variables...continue to full post

Full post as published by DUI Blog on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).