As I have previously written, breath tests have been excluded from evidence in King County District court DUI cases for quite some time now because of the case, State v. Ahmach. In that case, a 3-judge panel in The Redmond District Court had ruled that because there were so many procedural problems as well as fraud involved at the State Toxicology Lab, the breath tests cannot be considered reliable and the will be suppressed until the State can demonstrate that the problems with the Lab have been corrected. Since this decision, DUI lawyers, including myself, have been filing "Ahmach motions" at DUI arraignments and have been getting the breath test results thrown out.
A few months ago, the King County Prosecutor filed a motion for a hearing to show the court that the problems in the Lab have been corrected and get breath tests admitted in evidence once again. The prosecutor has "randomly" selected a number of recent DUI cases where there was a breath test as part of evidence to show that the problems have been corrected at the State Toxicology Lab.
A team of DUI lawyers is opposing the prosecutor's motion and have selected their own cases to show that the problems at the Lab still exist and the breath test results should not be allowed into evidence.
The 3-judge panel reconvened in Redmond District court a couple weeks ago to hear testimony. Both sides will be presenting argument at a hearing on August 26th at 8:45 a.m. in the Redmond District courthouse. I plan on personally attending this hearing and will write another post regarding the outcome at that time.
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