AZ DUI

By driving a motor vehicle in Arizona, you give your "implied consent" to submit to a chemical test for alcohol or drug content if suspected by a police officer of driving under the influence. The officer gets to decide which test he/she wants to request, and if you refuse, you will lose your license. The test is usually of either breath or blood, but can be other bodily substances as well.

If you refuse to take a test, the prosecutor can later argue that you refused out of a "consciousness of guilt." If you refuse to take a test, the officer can still obtain chemical evidence from you by obtaining a search warrant. When the cops get a warrant during a DUI arrest, they almost always will force you to take a blood test. This is because it would be very difficult to force somebody to blow into a tube. With a search warrant, they can strap you down and forcibly take your blood.

There is much confusion surrounding whether it is best to take a test or to refuse the test. There is also much confusion as to when to submit to the test. For a first time DUI arrest, it is usually best to take a test. This is because the punishments for taking and failing a test are usually less than refusing the test. If you refuse (and it's your first DUI) you will lose your license for one year. If you fail the test (i.e., it reads above a 0.08), you will lose your license for a maximum of 90 days from the MVD. This must be weighed against the possible criminal punishments for refusing versus taking the test. If it is your first DUI and you register above a 0.08, but under a 0.150, you are eligible for the minimum DUI punishment available in Arizona (AZ). However, if you register a BAC of 0.150 or above, you may be convicted of "extreme DUI," which carries a stiffer jail sentence than you would necessarily get had you refused and been convicted of an "affected by" DUI.

When Arizona (AZ) DUI law talks about "Alcohol Content" or BAC, it refers to the number of grams of alcohol present per 100 milliliters of blood in the person's system. A BAC of 0.10 would mean that the person has 1/10 of a gram of alcohol per every 100 milliliters of blood. So when it comes to the legal limit of 0.08, we are not talking about a whole lot of measurable alcohol.

Blood testing simply takes a sample of blood and directly measures the alcohol content. Breath testing, on the other hand, is more complicated and error prone. By using equations that use the relative amount of alcohol contained in a sample of deep lung (alveolar) air, law enforcement can then calculate the amount of Blood Alcohol that should relate to. The problem with testing alveolar air is that the sample does not necessarily remain constant. Temperature and breath patterns affect the content of any given breath sample.

In the typical case in which chemical evidence is admitted for use by the prosecution, there are more ways to attack the accuracy of a breath test than a blood test. A blood test also measures for the presence of prohibited drugs and their metabolites in your system, while a breath test measures only alcohol

The breath test machine (commonly referred to as a breathalyzer) may be one of several machines available on the market. These machines are produced by private companies and sold to law enforcement agencies. The most common machine used in Arizona is the Intoxilyzer machine.

The Intoxilyzer is generally considered one of the best breath testing machines available today. However, it is not without problems. It must be properly maintained and operated in order to function properly. Even when functioning properly, it may have an inherent margin of error of plus or minus .01.

The Intoxilyzer uses infrared spectrometry to measure the the degree the alcohol in a breath sample absorbs infrared energy. The greater the amount of alcohol present in the sample being analyzed, the greater the absorption. Inside the machine a quartz lamp radiates infrared energy through the sample. The amount of energy that makes it through the sample (and is not absorbed by alcohol) is then measured and calculations are made.

If you've been arrested for a DUI in Arizona (AZ) and have failed a chemical test, don't despair. There are ways to challenge the results, even in the case of an extremely high result.