Seattle DUI Attorney | Ahmach and Your DUI Case

Ahmach, like most other cases, is just a person. He’s the lucky person, though, that gets his name uttered every time a breath test is suppressed in King County (the county where Seattle is located) for being unreliable. If you didn’t know, a couple of great Seattle DUI attorneys banded together a couple of years ago and decided to fight the reliability of the breath test. It was a scientific argument, namely that the science behind the test just wasn’t good enough to warrant the court’s acceptance of it.

But as they began to investigate further, they began to uncover other problems, bigger problems, that amplified the call of these Seattle DUI lawyers to have all breath tests in King County suppressed. Leaders of the state toxicology lab were signing declarations that they’d reviewed results when they hadn’t. Procedures weren’t being followed correctly, or at all in some cases. And the procedures themselves weren’t what was necessary to ensure an accurate result every time.

So the court made a ruling on the test. This is what they said:

Evidence has shown that the Washington State Toxicology Laboratory (WSTL) engaged in practices that were both fraudulent and scientifically unacceptable. The evidence generated by the WSTL is sufficiently compromised by ethical lapses, systemic inaccuracy, negligence and violation of scientific principles that it lacks the credibility necessary to be helpful to any trier of fact.

That’s some pretty great stuff. And as a Seattle DUI attorney I loved it because it meant that moving forward all breath test results in King County courts would be suppressed.

But the state isn’t done trying to get rid of the Ahmach ruling and begin prosecuting DUI cases utilizing the unfair rules the breath test gives them. They have asked the court to open this ruling again to hear new evidence on the matter. The state thinks they have gotten their act together enough to get breath tests back into evidence again.

And one of the cases they’ve chosen to use as the standard for this motion (similar to Ahmach) is mine. They picked my guy at random. He’s now got to wait until this hearing is over so the court can (hopefully) renew its finding of insufficiency for the breath test before he can move on with his case. But, rest assured, we are going to fight with everything we’ve got to keep this test out.

One of the great things about being a DUI attorney is the opportunity to protect those that are wrongly accused of DUI. They have to fight for their livelihood just because they failed to use a turn signal or had expired tabs. Winning this motion will give us an even better chance of doing that.