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Snohomish Co. judge throws out breath test results

10:04 AM PDT on Tuesday, August 5, 2008

By MIMI JUNG / KING 5 News

BOTHELL, Wash. - A Snohomish County District Court judge ruled Monday that the breath test given to suspected drunken drivers is compromised and completely unreliable. The judge is now suppressing the test, forcing prosecutors to find other ways to prove their cases.

Video: Another judge tosses out breathalyzer tests
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"I saw my government not caring whether or not it got things right, it just wanted to get it done quick," said attorney Ted Vosk.

Vosk says he and a team of lawyers have gathered mounds of evidence which prove the breath test, a critical part of many drunken driving cases, is completely unreliable.

"The problem is you can't tell whether or not it's accurate.  The evidence itself simply has no reliability whatsoever," said Vosk.

Vosk discovered problems with the solution used to ensure the breath test machine is producing accurate readings.

It's just part of a litany of problems facing the state toxicology lab, which has come under fire for making sloppy mistakes, such as bad software, incorrect data and discarding data.

As a result, a Snohomish County District Court judge is throwing out the test.

"It scares me.  Somebody's going to get injured and there won't be any proof," said Shirley Anderson, who lost a son 30 years ago to a drunk driver.

Anderson fears what will happen when a judge throws out a potential key piece of evidence.

"All they can say is they caught him and he was inebriated or assumed to be inebriated, looked inebriated, and have no physical proof," she said.

Vosk says he has no intention of putting drunken drivers back on the road. His goal is to hold the government agency accountable.

"We remove 100 people from the road, yeah, we'll get the innocent, but we'll also get the guilty.  That's not how our system works.  Our system works that you get the guilty and the innocent are exonerated but you can't get that without reliable evidence," he said.

There are some judges, including one in Skagit County, who have ruled that breath tests are admissible in their court. But in Snohomish County there are at least two judges who say for now, they can't count on those breathalyzer tests.

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