The state of Ohio began buying Intoxilyzer 8000 breath testing machines last year, the same machine used in every Kansas DUI breath test case, but the excitement by law enforcement for the machine has been underwhelming. A recent story in the Columbus Dispatch indirectly points out some interesting facts: (1) The state of Ohio paid about $9,000 for each of the Intoxilyer machines that it purchased. The state of Kansas paid about $7,000 or less, so somebody got ripped off; (2) The machine has been used 2,096 times in Ohio and allegedly shown drivers to be over the legal limit 1,651 times.
That means the police officer made the wrong decision to arrest 445 times, nearly 25% of the time. In other words, nearly 1 in 4 people arrested were actually innocent; (3) The machine has had 653 unsuccessful breath test attempts in Ohio which were, according to the article, largely attributable to the “presence of alcohol in the air”… what? Alcohol in the air? LOL; (4) Ohio police conducted a DUI checkpoint in which 500 vehicles were stopped and there were ZERO breath tests and ZERO arrests. In other words, it was an enormous waste of time and money, not to mention a significant inconvenience to the occupants of 500 cars.
Kansas brought the Intoxilyzer 8000 online for breath testing use in Kansas DUI cases in 2008 and phased it in over the next year. Now, every jurisdiction in the state has the machine and it is the exclusive machine used to test breath under the Kansas DUI regulations promulgated by the Kansas Department of Health & Environment (KDHE). The KDHE, to my knowledge, has not released statistics like those of Ohio. Those numbers would be interesting. I expect litigation concerning the Intoxilyzer 8000 in the near future, including litigation over its choice as the exclusive machine for Kansas DUI cases, divulgence of the source code of the machine, and the sufficiency of the regulations and oversight for its use in prosecuting alleged Kansas DUI offenders. So, we may get these kinds of numbers soon and they may enlighted those involved with Kansas DUI law to the fact that the Intoxilyzer 8000 is not so great.