SEATTLE - Tonight, hundreds if not thousands of DUI cases have been thrown into question by a panel of King County judges.

Those judges found so many problems with a state lab that they threw out breath test results in six cases and that may only be the beginning. They question if the state toxicologist should still have a job, and the judges say there's no way of knowing if thousands of breath tests given between 2003 and 2007 are even accurate.

Defense attorneys say the problem is not with police or how the test is administered. It's a meltdown at the state toxicology lab.

"They didn't care when they did their work; it's as if they didn't realize that this is going to affect somebody's life," said defense attorney Ted Vosk.

The panel of three King County district court judges agrees, finding: "Ethical lapses, systemic inaccuracy, negligence and violations of scientific principles ... Literally thousands of breath tests performed in recent years were affected through a multiplicity of errors."

There are a couple hundred breath test machines across the state. The machines only work by comparing the alcohol in your breath to a known sample. It's the state toxicology lab that makes the samples of ethanol and water. The breath test results are only as accurate as the samples that come out of the lab.

"They simply didn't follow the most basic scientific standards," Vosk said.

The judges say the lab mistakes included entering incorrect data, discarding data, bad software, and logbooks not properly kept. Add to that a lab manager who certified that she prepared the alcohol samples, when allegedly, she didn't.

King County prosecutors concede with 40,000 breath test given every year in Washington state, there could be thousands of cases affected in King County and elsewhere, but that doesn't mean charges will be dropped.

"The failure to have a breath test result, which seems like such a prominent part of DUI cases, is not, the only way for us to prove that somebody's committed that crime," said Mark Larson, King County chief prosecutor.

It's not clear how many people who have been convicted of DUI may be able to go back and have their cases re-opened.

With other counties also considering similar cases, it's possible this ruling could be appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court.

The state patrol says it has already corrected all the problems the judges cited, and the patrol believes, at most, only 139 cases may be affected.