Understanding Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) and the Alcohol Influence Report in New Jersey

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. If you've been arrested for DWI in New Jersey, you're probably staring at a number right now. That BAC reading on your Alcohol Influence Report looks like science - cold, objective, inarguable. We understand the terror that number represents. But here's what prosecutors don't want you to know: that number isn't proof of anything. It's the headline on a story filled with holes.

The Alcohol Influence Report and your BAC reading are not the unassailable evidence they appear to be. One thermometer. One technician. Over 20,000 cases invalidated in New Jersey because of calibration failures. That's not hyperbole - that's documented legal history. The "scientific certainty" of breathalyzer evidence is built on a foundation that crumbles the moment you start asking questions.

What the Alcohol Influence Report Actually Documents

The Alcohol Influence Report - what everyone calls the AIR - is the document that gets generated automatically when you blow into the Alcotest machine. The machine prints it out with no human intervention, which sounds like a good thing for accuracy. But heres the thing: no human can manipulate it, but no human can fix its errors either.

The AIR contains more then just your BAC number. It documents the officers observations about your behavior, your speech patterns, whether you complained of illness or injury, and your general attitude during the arrest. It also prints two different readings using two completly different technologies - Infrared and Electrochemical sensors. When those readings dont match within tolerance, you have reasonable doubt built into the prosecutions own evidence.

Heres something that will shock you: under New Jersey law, your supposed to recieve a copy of your Alcohol Influence Report right after your arrest. Almost nobody gets it. Most people dont even know to ask. And if you didnt get that document, thats already a procedural violation that an experienced attorney can exploit.

The AIR also contains calibration information mandated by State v. Chun - the landmark 2008 case that established the rules for how breathalyzer evidence can be used in New Jersey. Every calibration record, every solution change, every repair history - its all supposed to be available to your defense team.

The 20-Minute Observation Rule They Probly Violated

OK so think about this for a second. Before the officer can administer a breath test, New Jersey law requires them to watch you continuously for 20 minutes. Not 19 minutes. Not watching you through a rearview mirror while driving. Twenty minutes of uninterrupted observation in a room.

Why does this matter? Because if you burp, hiccup, vomit, chew gum, or put anything in your mouth during that observation period, it can effect the accuracy of the test. Residual mouth alcohol can cause dramaticlly inflated readings. One burp during the observation period isnt just embarassing - its a legal requirement to restart the entire 20-minute clock.

If the officer left the room for even thirty seconds to grab coffee or answer a phone call, the observation period must start over completly. Most officers dont restart it. Many dont even realize they need to.

Heres another thing that catches people off guard: time spent in the squad car driving to the station does NOT count toward the observation period. But many officers testify otherwise. This is checkable. This is documentable. And this is the kind of procedural failure that gets evidence thrown out.

The State has the burden to prove that observation period was continuous and uninterupted. Its not your job to prove they messed up - its there job to prove they didnt.

The Calibration House of Cards

Look, the whole breathalyzer system depends on one thing: that the machine was properly calibrated before it tested you. And calibration depends on following extremly specific procedures. Miss one step, and the entire reading is scientificaly meaningless.

The calibration thermometer has to be traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology - NIST for short. Sounds like boring technical stuff, right? But heres were it gets real: in 2018, a New Jersey State Police Sergeant named Marc Dennis was caught falsifying calibration records. He wasnt using NIST-traceable thermometers. He was basicly just checking boxes.

The result? Over 20,000 DWI convictions in New Jersey are potentialy void. Twenty thousand people convicted on garbage science. Twenty thousand cases were the "proof" was based on a lie.

Your case might be one of them. And even if it isnt, the Cassidy scandal proves that the system is only as reliable as the humans running it.

The Alcotest machine stores six months of data inside it - every test, every error message, every failure. Your defense attorney should be demanding that download. Its called discovery, and its your right. Most inexperienced lawyers dont even know to ask for it.

Rising Blood Alcohol: You Werent That Drunk When Driving

Heres were the math actualy works in your favor. The law says you cant have a BAC of 0.08 or higher at the time of driving. But the test dosent measure you at the time of driving. It measures you 30 minutes to an hour later, at the police station.

Think about what happens when you drink. Alcohol doesnt hit your bloodstream instantly. It rises over time, peaking somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes after your last drink - sometimes as long as three hours if youve eaten a large meal. So you could have been perfectly legal when you were behind the wheel, and then by the time you got to the station and blew into the machine, your BAC had risen above the limit.

This is called the rising blood alcohol defense, and its not some exotic legal theory. Its basic biology.

Your BAC also drops at a predictable rate - about 0.015% per hour. A good defense attorney can work backward from your test time to the actual time of driving and demonstrate that you were under the legal limit when it counted.

Let that sink in. The machine that measured you could show 0.10 at the station, but if you were actualy at 0.07 when you were driving, your not guilty.

When Your Body Lies to the Machine

Medical conditions create false readings. This isnt speculation - its documented science that even prosecutors dont dispute.

Diabetics are particuarly vulnerable. When diabetes isnt properly controlled, the body goes into ketoacidosis and produces acetone. Guess what the breathalyzer reads acetone as? Alcohol. You could blow a 0.08 or higher without having consumed a single drop of alcohol.

GERD - gastroesophageal reflux disease - creates similar problems. Acid reflux pushes stomach contents into your throat and mouth. If theres any alcohol in your stomach from hours earlier, that reflux can cause dramaticly elevated readings that dont reflect your actual blood alcohol level.

And heres something most people never think about: dental work. Dentures, braces, even a loose filling - they all trap alcohol in your mouth. The machine is supposed to measure deep lung air, but if theres alcohol trapped in dental work, the reading gets inflated.

The breathalyzer cant tell the difference between alcohol you drank two hours ago and acetone your body manufactured this morning. Its not that smart. Its just a machine following programming.

Blood tests are actualy more accurate than breath tests for determining BAC. So why does New Jersey treat blood tests as a last resort? Because breath tests are cheaper and faster. Your freedom is being measured by the budget-friendly option.

How Defense Attorneys Dismantle BAC Evidence

Todd Spodek and the team at Spodek Law Group approach DWI cases by attacking the foundation of the evidence, not just the conclusion. Theres a reason some defense firms report 70% evidence suppression rates. The machine isnt bulletproof - its just presented that way.

The first thing we demand is what lawyers call the foundational documents. This includes the Draeger Safety Certificate of Accuracy for the Alcotest instrument, the calibration records including control tests and linearity tests, credentials of the coordinator who performed calibration, the Certificate of Analysis for the 0.10% solution used in the control test - everything.

Any gap in those documents is a potential defense. Any irregularity in maintenance, any skipped procedure, any period were the machine was malfunctioning - all of it matters.

We also look at the officers training records. Not just whether they were certified to operate the machine, but whether that certification was current at the time of your arrest. Officers get lazy about recertification. Thats their problem, and potentially your opening.

Even former DUI prosecutors admit that breathalyzers are "prone to error." That isnt defense spin. Thats coming from people who used to put cases together on the other side.

Special Rules for Women Over 60

Heres something that most people - and honestly, most lawyers - dont know about. The Alcotest requires you to blow a certain volume of air: 1.5 liters. If you cant provide enough breath, the machine records an insufficient sample.

But in State v. Chun, the New Jersey Supreme Court recognized that women over 60 often cant physically produce 1.5 liters of breath. So they created a different standard: 1.2 liters is sufficient for women in that age group.

Heres were it gets interesting: the Court also ruled that a female defendant over the age of sixty "may not be charged with, prosecuted for, or convicted of" refusal if the States only evidence is an Alcohol Influence Report showing an insufficient breath sample.

Read that again. If your a woman over 60 and you simply couldnt blow hard enough - not that you refused, but that you physicaly couldnt provide enough air - you cannot be convicted of refusal based on that AIR.

This ruling dosent get talked about much because it applies to a specific demographic. But if it applies to you, its a complete defense.

The Administrative Hearing You Probably Dont Know About

Heres something that catches people completley off guard: theres a separate administrative process that runs paralel to your criminal case, and you only have 15 days to act on it.

When your arrested for DWI in New Jersey, the Motor Vehicle Commission schedules a hearing to suspend your license. This hearing is seperate from your criminal trial. Different rules, different burden of proof, different timeline.

And if you miss that 15-day window to request a hearing, youve surrendered a major defense opportunity. Your license suspension becomes almost automatic.

At Spodek Law Group, we handle both the criminal and administrative sides simultaniously because we understand they effect each other. A victory in one proceeding can influence the other. Ignoring the administrative hearing because your focused on the criminal case is a rookie mistake - and its one that costs clients their driving priviliges unnecessarilly.

Why the Number Isnt the Case

Lets bring it all together. The BAC number on your Alcohol Influence Report looks like science. It looks objective and inarguable. Prosecutors present it like its the beginning and end of the story.

But that number represents a tower of assumptions. The machine was calibrated properly. The thermometer was NIST-traceable. The officer observed you for a full, uninterupted 20 minutes. You dont have a medical condition that creates false readings. Your BAC wasnt still rising from drinks you had an hour before driving. No one burped or hiccupped. No one left the room.

Break any link in that chain, and the number means nothing.

Over 20,000 cases invalidated in New Jersey because one technician didnt follow calibration procedure. That should tell you everything about how "scientific" this evidence realy is.

If your facing DWI charges in New Jersey, dont assume the number on that Alcohol Influence Report is your fate. Call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196 for a consultation. We know were to look. We know what questions to ask. And we know how fragile that evidence realy is when you start pulling at the threads.