The BATs: Breath Alcohol Tests

This past Memorial Day weekend was exciting in many unexpected ways. My family and I live in an big, old Victorian house built around 1889. It has a certain charm or charms about it. Tin ceilings, beautiful wood triple moldings around everything, floor to ceiling windows abound... I guess it makes me long for a time when people enjoyed alittle more and savored details. To balance things out, it lacks many modern amenities like a master bath, central air, bedroom closets, or a usable garage.

Our home is also conveniently located two blocks from the Courthouses in Ithaca, NY. I have a home/office combo because the house is huge, and I am beyond the need for a traditional office in my untraditional life and lifestyle. I am not a bricks and mortar type of lawyer. All of my bar and college diplomas sit in my basement. I have doctorate degrees in Chiropractic, as well as law, and am a member of the PA, NY, NJ, and FL bars but I do not feel the need to display my credentials upon a wall. I moved to Ithaca three years ago to specifically abandon my bluetooth, my offices, and sitting in my car for hours in traffic. I wanted away from the big cities with all the honking, parking, driving, and pollution issues. My iphone keeps me in touch with faxes, emails, texts, the internet, and all phone calls. I am in a word "connected" to people and a world of information. My clients can have all my numbers because they will talk directly to me. I focus my practice on the defense of DWI because it allows me the time and energy to devote my attention and commitment to a smaller amount of cases. My philosophy of Quality over Quantity rules my life and practice.

I walk alot now. I can actually name alot of flowers and birds. My lawyer and doctor friends from college think I should get a psych eval. Anyway, last week I had an exterminator treat our home for wasps and bees. That night I saw my first bat flying in my living room. My wife and kids freaked out. I did not want to (it would not leave through an open window) but I had to kill it. The next morning we awoke to two more bats. Bats are like flying rats. My wife left the house that morning to go outside and run . As leaving she said she was not coming back until "they" were gone. I thought on that one for awhile, and decided that I did want my wife to come back. So after many calls to wildlife removers on a memorial weekend Saturday went nowhere, I suited up in my bat gear. On went my gardening gloves, long sleeves, baseball hat, my weapons of choice: a tennis racket, and a broom. I proceeded to kill and squash two more bats. Which brings me to today's blog....

The Breath Alcohol Test.
How do we attack and kill a real B.A.T.????

Alvin Toffler said, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn".

I think Toffler had it right. I am constantly learning, unlearning, and relearning. The best analogy for attacking the BAT was given to me by an expert in the field, Jan Semenoff. When I attended his seminar on Breath Alcohol Testing he likened the breath testing process like spokes on a wheel and the result (the number), the BAC, the bullseye in the middle. The spokes support the hub, the target number, they give it validity:

A Maintenance Spoke- was the machine properly and regularly performed?
A Calibration Spoke- was the machine calibrated, when was it calibrated, and how was it calibrated?
A quality control Spoke- was the simulation solution in the machine changed and when?
A training Spoke- was the operator of the machine trained and currently licensed?
A Procedure Spoke- were proper machine procedures followed?
A Operator Error Spoke- Did the operator of the machine make any mistakes?
A Operator Malfeasance Spoke- Was the operator's intent to be accurate in question?
A Sampling Error Spoke-Was the breath sample proper in space and time?
A Radio Interference Spoke- Was there any Radio Frequency Inter. present during testing?

Additional Spokes in our wheel analogy are:

A hardware design Spoke-
A software design Spoke-
A Environmental Factor Spoke-
A External Verification Spoke-
A Accuracy Spoke-
A Precision Spoke-
A Specificity Spoke-

If we can break the "spokes" of the machine's support wheel, if we can loosen them, if we can damage them, or if we can get rid of a few of them the wheel will fall apart. The machine (the wheel of validity) no longer has all it's supports. The breath alcohol number, the final result, the bullseye, the target BAC (breath alcohol test result) which points to legal guilt is now compromised, it is now debatable, it now an uncertain number, it is no longer a number "beyond a reasonable doubt." The BAT is then dead, and can no longer hurt us.