In yet another situation involving the Intoxilyer 5000, approximately 360 people in Washington D.C. were convicted of Driving While Intoxicated based on evidence of their alcohol concentration provided by the machine known as the Intoxilyzer 5000.
Just one problem. Due to human error, the results were inaccurate by as much as twenty percent!
The Intoxilyzer 5000 is the "instrument" used in Texas to measure the alcohol concentration of persons suspected of DWI. In the DC case, human beings were able to manipulate the baseline data, intetnionally or not, that resulted in the false reporting of the alcohol concentration.
Nevertheless, the results of the Intoxilyzer 5000 were accepted as accurate by juries in the DC cases, just as the results are sometimes accepted as accurate by juries in Texas and elsewhere.
What was the human error? And how did they find the mistake? I would bet that it wasn't by the self test the machine does for every breath test. Great example why self tests are bad.
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