5. 15-Minute Observation & The Breath Machine
Title 17.
Sonoma County law enforcement testing of your alcohol levels must comply with state rules (called "Title 17") which legitimize a non-doctor (in other words, your arresting officer, lab technicians, etc) engaging medical procedures to determine the amount of alcohol in your body. Your DUI attorney will explain to you that in order for test results to be valid in Sonoma County court or at the Santa Rosa DMV, certain procedural rules must be followed. You can see these rules by clicking here: Title 17 Rules. The burden is on the police and the government to show this fundamental compliance.
Mouth Alcohol and the 15-Minute Rule.
In breath testing cases, one of these procedural rules is that you must be continuously observed by Sonoma County law enforcement for 15 minutes immediately prior to the test being taken to ensure that you did not belch, regurgitate, eat or drink, or otherwise have mouth alcohol or other foreign substances present which would cause the tests to produce falsely high results. The best defense here is when the Sonoma officer arrives at an identified time prior to the DUI arrest and your Sonoma County DUI lawyer can prove that the relevant breath tests are administered to you prior to the end of the 15-minute waiting period.
The Breath Machine.
There are additional regulations in Title 17 which require that Sonoma County breath machines are approved devices, and calibrated at regular intervals and test within certain acceptable ranges of accuracy. Your DUI attorney can subpoena and review calibration and maintenance records from the arresting agency in Sonoma County, and from the Santa Rosa lab of the Department Of Justice, for possible defenses, particularly if your test results are relatively low.
Many Santa Rosa police agencies and Sonoma County law enforcement use a type of breath machine called the Alcotest 7410 which can be manipulated by the officer administering the test. See the California Attorney General's 7410 Information Bulletin. The YouTube video link provided below effectively demonstrates this vulnerability in the reliability of the machine, and therefore demonstrates a defense in the right circumstances, typically if there is additional evidence of sobriety, police foul play or other error during your DUI arrest. Click here to watch the demonstration (although this video effectively portrays the machine's defect, we do not endorse the demonstrator's general suggestion to refuse the breath test): Darryl Genis Demonstrates 7410 Vulnerability.