The GERD Defense is designed to take on the challenge of overcoming acid reflux in order to subvert the Atlanta Intoxilyzer 9000.
Atlanta police often bring a driver who has been suspected of drinking and driving to a police station or a mobile processing unit for a field sobriety test, after which the officer asks the driver to blow into an Intoxilyzer 9000. The device is the authorized breath testing machine in Georgia, and the public often considers the numbers it produces as scientific evidence. Many people who see the digital readout as 0.08% or above may think that it’s a given that they will be convicted and that they can’t do anything about the evidence presented by the state. The machine, however, depends on some well-known biological assumptions which can be easily dismissed by a very common ailment: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), acid reflux or chronic heartburn. The first step in uncovering the hidden flaws of a medical anomaly that has gotten your breath test results up to par is to find a trusted Atlanta DUI Lawyer.
In order to appreciate the effectiveness of a GERD defense, you need to be familiar with how the Intoxilyzer 9000 is meant to be used. The machine is designed to measure the alcohol vapour that comes from far within the lungs, called alveolar air. The scientific formula entered into the device assumes that all the air being exhaled is from these deep lung chambers and thus gives a true correlation of the driver’s blood alcohol level. But the machine cannot distinguish between the alcohol in the deep breath of the lungs and “mouth alcohol. In people with acid reflux or GERD, the acid and gas in the stomach routinely flow back up the esophagus and into the mouth. Even if the driver has eaten only a little alcohol, the reflux can push liquid alcohol from the stomach back up to the mouth in its entirety, forming a very high concentration of vapour which can cause the actual result to be significantly different from the test result.
The Intoxilyzer 9000 takes in the person’s concentrated mouth alcohol, not the air coming from his/her lungs. Therefore, a completely sober or ‘well’ under the legal limit driver may end up with a falsely inflated ‘high’ reading because they had an episode of silent reflux just before or during the testing process. Any of these can cause a severe acid reflux attack, including eating spicy food at a late night out at an eating establishment in Atlanta, stress and just anxiety itself from being detained by the police. The aggressive Atlanta DUI Attorney knows the importance of protecting your rights in case the state uses a breath sample compromised by science in court.
Medical defence will require a highly complex and careful examination of the evidence to overturn a chemical test. Attorney James Yeargan is very familiar with the logs of the breath-testing process and is able to examine them in great detail and compare them to a driver’s medical record. A solid defense is to provide your doctor’s records which will provide the medical documentation of a pre-existing diagnosis of GERD, acid reflux, or hiatal hernia. Moreover, your defense attorney will carefully study the actions of the arresting officer during the required 20-minute observation period under Georgia law in order for a breath test to be legally given.
The 20 minutes of this critical time can be a stressful and tiring period for the driver, as the officer must continue close and careful monitoring of the driver to prevent them from swallowing, burping, belching or regurgitating. When the officer was distracted, paperwork, or looking away, the officer can’t ensure that there was not a reflux episode. If the dedicated DUI Attorney Atlanta clients trust can establish that the observation period was tainted and that the driver has GERD, the validity of the entire breath test is seriously in question.
You should never let the wrong chemical test determine your legal fate. The court should know that the Intoxilyzer 9000 is a machine with at least one false assumption and one that fails to consider individual medical facts. If you think your breath test results were tampered with because you suffered from either acid reflux or heartburn, then you need to hire a top DUI Lawyer Atlanta that will know how to beat the prosecution’s scientific claims and eliminate the unreliable breath test data to get a fair resolution to your case.
