Petition Against Intoxilyzer 8000 Filed in Florida

A petition was filed with Florida’s Division of Administrative hearings last week challenging the use of the breath-testing machine, the Intoxilyzer 8000, as a reliable device in drunk driving prosecutions.

The petitioners released a statement which accused the Florida Department of Law Enforcement of deliberately hiding information about the number of failed test results produced by the machine. The statement included that the FDLE withheld “information about failures by the Intoxilyzer 8000 during its initial approval testing in 2002.”

The attorneys filing the petition complained that even when the machine was approved in 2002, that it failed a significant amount of tests. They also said that the FDLE got approval for the Intoxilyzer 8000 without notifying the public or state government officials of these test results.

In 2009, a panel of judges in Brevard County ruled that 56 DUI cases would not be thrown out based on an argument that the Intoxilyzer was not approved for use in Florida, the argument was that specific parts were not in compliance with regulations.

The Intoxilyzer 8000 is manufactured by CMI in Kentucky and the source code for the machine has been the issue of litigation across the country.

If an administrative ruling in favor of the attorneys petition transpired, it could mean the FDLE would need to get another approval for the Intoxilyzer 8000, and it may also affect whether past breath-results could be used in pending DUI cases. Judge Stuart Lerner has been assigned to the case but has not yet set a hearing.