Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney BlogOne Word Jeopardizes Missouri DUI Convictions
Small words can have a big impact. Just ask the thousands of drivers in Missouri who could see their DUI convictions thrown out of court thanks to the substitution of “or” for “and” in the instructions for Breathalyzer calibration. If a judge made a similar ruling regarding DUIs in Los Angeles, lawyers could submit dozens of requests to have their clients’ convictions overturned.
The ruling stems from an incident on July 12, 2013, when Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, police arrested Kristin Nicole Stiers for driving while intoxicated. When Stier’s attorney, Matt Fry, began looking into the results of the breathalyzer test—which registered her blood alcohol content as above the legal limit—he found that the state agency responsible for the calibration directions had made a mistake in its directions to state police.