Just Criminal Law owner and lead attorney Christina L. Williams is featured in this video.
Drinking and driving is risky business and can lead to a DUI charge. In this video, we’re discussing what you eat and drink that can lead to a DUI charge in Wyoming, South Dakota and other states. If you drink alcohol and drive, be sure to watch this video to learn the risks! Learn about your legal rights in Wyoming and South Dakota and what you can do as a citizen to protect your legal rights.
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Transcript
Speaker 1
Hi. Everyone. Today, we’re going to talk about three unusual things that can happen, resulting in an inaccurate breath test in your DUI investigation. I’m Christina Williams of Just Criminal Law.
00;00;16;03 – 00;00;25;13
Speaker 2
And I’m David Manne, legal storytelling specialist. Okay, so three confused things, ways to confuse the breath machine. What are they?
00;00;26;01 – 00;00;30;09
Speaker 1
Well, we talked about this a little bit in a previous video, but being diabetic. And then something similar to being diabetic is if you are doing the Atkins Diet and you’ve really strictly adhered to it. And then the third thing is this wet burp that happens right before you take your breath test at the jail.
00;00;48;07 – 00;01;08;26
Speaker 2
Okay. So let’s leave the wet burp for a moment here and talk about that first one, Atkins diet. So if I remember this, that came out a while back, but that’s where there’s no you have no carbs at all. Like you eat nothing but protein. And and it’s a pretty extreme diet, but it really makes you lose weight fast, right?
00;01;09;16 – 00;01;10;04
Speaker 1
Right. And what’s going on in your body is basically you are not allowing your body to have sugar or that quick energy that you need to move around and exercise and know go through your day. So you’ve restricted your carbs down to almost nothing and your body has to get the energy or the fuel from somewhere else, so it goes to your fat storage.
00;01;36;25 – 00;01;37;17
Speaker 1
Well, when you’ve got your body relying on the fat storage and not the glucose, it’s going to produce these ketones.
00;01;47;17 – 00;01;50;02
Speaker 1
This acid ketoacidosis is going on in your body and the breath machine is not going to be able to tell the difference between alcohol that’s consumed and these ketones in your blood. So it’s going to give a false result essentially.
00;02;06;11 – 00;02;32;24
Speaker 3
Okay. So that’s the same as what happens chemically in your body when you’re a diabetic. So I guess they are related in terms of blood sugar, which is what carbs produce, but it produces so it produces this thing. Ketones that confuse the breath machine, does it also do what like we talked about in the diabetic video where it can confuse, you can be sort of low blood sugar, confused and fail the field sobriety test?
00;02;33;29 – 00;02;36;26
Speaker 1
Sure. Absolutely. When you’re, you know, less than optimal.Because you have low blood sugar, you’re not going to listen to instructions as closely, so you can make mistakes on the field sobriety tests. You’re not going to perform physically as well as you would if your body was fully fueled.
00;02;55;17 – 00;02;57;21
Speaker 1
And you’ll even have this bad breath, this weird bad breath that might confuse the officer into thinking you’ve consumed alcohol.
00;03;04;23 – 00;03;23;01
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, that’s and it’s it’s clear cut. Probably if, you know, you have had no alcohol. But on one of those nights where you had a couple of beers and then were driving and you happen to be on the Atkins diet and have no carbs in your system, you might just think, Wow, I didn’t think I had so much to drink.
00;03;23;01 – 00;03;35;09
Speaker 3
And yet this machine machines don’t lie and you’re starting to think that, yeah, actually, I’m you know, I’m over the limit when in fact you’re not. It’s just your body chemistry That’s I mean that’s pretty alarming.
00;03;36;21 – 00;03;37;23
Speaker 1
Being on that low, low carb diet can cause a mental fog. And and really, you know, you’re not going to look good or perform well.
00;03;47;02 – 00;03;51;08
Speaker 3
What about this wet burp thing you mentioned? That doesn’t sound great, but how does that work?
00;03;51;22 – 00;03;58;02
Speaker 1
Prior to taking a breath test, the officer is is supposed to observe you for 15 minutes.
00;03;58;11 – 00;03;59;09
Speaker 1
And the reason that they are supposed to watch you is to to say for certain that you haven’t belched. So if you’ve consumed alcohol, you’ve got alcohol sitting in your stomach and you burp or have some sort of acid reflux, you’re going to have alcohol vapors in your mouth. And again, the machine is supposed to be foolproof, but, you know, for a variety of reasons, Wyoming doesn’t necessarily do what it’s supposed to there and have what it means to have connected and hooked up so that we’re going to detect this mouth alcohol And and so it’s a potential defense because you’re not getting that deep lung alcohol. Your blood. And your oxygen are being exchanged deep in your lungs. That’s going to be more reflective of your blood alcohol content. You’re getting these mouth vapors and that’s going to be inaccurate.
00;05;02;14 – 00;05;20;29
Speaker 3
Wow. Well, it sounds like these are a couple of ways where someone could very much be going through a long legal process unnecessarily and they need someone to find this stuff out and help them out in their in their in their legal trouble. So they need to call you. Right?
00;05;22;09 – 00;05;22;29
Speaker 1
Right. We will include a link in the description where they can call, text or chat with a member of my team any time, day or night.
00;05;31;06 – 00;05;31;24
Speaker 1
Here at Just Criminal Law, we know you only get one shot at justice.
So make yours count.
