Every Friday we take a look at some of the most commonly asked questions about Pennsylvania DUI so we can clear up any misconceptions and provide you with the most up-to-date and accurate information about PA DUI laws and related topics. Today:
Dear PA DUI Lawyer,
My mother is 54 and she was arrested yesterday and charged with a DUI. She’s diabetic and her sugar was low so she pulled over to the shoulder of the road so she could slowly make it home. The cops stopped her arrested her and when they took her to the station they tested her on a breath machine and they said she was over the limit?! But she never drinks! What’s going on here? I’m so confused.
If you are a diabetic falsely charged with a PA DUI contact The McShane Firm
Diabetics being falsely charged for DUI is an issue that is fairly common. According to some estimates one in seven drivers on the road in Pennsylvania are diabetics. The unfortunate thing is that police officers receive very little DUI training and often misinterpret medical conditions like2 as DUI. This coupled with the fact that the breath machines used all over PA are woefully inaccurate and do not uniquely measure ethanol (drinking alcohol) as opposed to other forms of alcohol. It is a universal design flaw, which creates a false positive in your mother’s case.
The condition you mother was suffering from is called Hypoglycemia- when blood sugar is abnormally low. The police probably looked at her sluggish behavior and interpreted that as being drunk. I have argued on this blog and all across PA that police officers need to be better trained so they can recognize health conditions like diabetes and understand that this is not a DUI.
On top of the obvious human failure here, is an amazing technological failure of the breath machine. To understand the problem first you’ll have to understand how breath machines work.
Breath machines measure alcohol in an indirect way. The machine sends infrared energy in the form of a beam through the breath sample and measure how these beams are absorbed. Once the light is absorbed the machine thinks “this must be alcohol”. The more light that is absorbed, the more ethanol (drinking alcohol) the machine reports. The problem here is that ethanol is not the only compound that absorbs infrared beams this way at the wavelengths examined by these machines. In fact, any chemical compound that contains the methyl group will absorb the beams much in the same way ethanol does. This includes chemicals like acetone and isopropyl alcohol.
The problem here is that when the body experiences low blood sugar, as is the case with many diabetics, the body changes its chemical processes and extra acetone is created as a bi-product (ketones). The person is in a state of ketoacidosis. It has been well documented that acetone created as the result of low sugar can create an emission of ketones which then results in emission of isopropyl alcohol, creating a false positive on breath machines like the Intoxilyzer 5000 (commonly found in Harrisburg and all over PA).
Your best bet here is to find a good defense attorney to review your mother’s DUI case. If you are in Central PA, please call The McShane Firm at 1-866-MCSHANE to meet the best DUI lawyers in PA.
Please remember to forward this post to any diabetic you know so that they are aware of this condition.
If you would like to ask a question, please submit it via the contact us link.
It is a national problem to be sure. It is an endemic and systemic problem. It is a problem that is pervasive and well-known within the scientific community. Yet, it is condoned.
In his latest blog post, Bob Keefer, a fellow member of the National College for DUI Defense, Inc and a true trailblazer in the state of Virginia hits the proverbial nail on the head with his aptly titled "Virginia to Diabetics: We Don’t Care"
In part, he writes:
Research indicates that as many as one in seven drivers are diabetic. This figure includes drivers who may be affected but do not have an official diagnosis. Despite this fact, Virginia’s latest breath tester can’t tell the difference between diabetes and intoxication. Now, diabetics who drive in Virginia are being wrongly convicted of DWI. Worse, it appears that Virginia knew about this problem at the time it ordered the machine… and chose to cover it up.
When Virginia initially requested bids for a new evidentiary breath test device to determine blood alcohol content it correctly required the machine to distinguish among alcohols. This requirement was intended to prevent wrongful convictions. When the manufacturer Virginia wanted to hire admitted that its product could not meet this specification, officials quietly dropped the requirement but nonetheless trained operators, taught judges and represented to prosecutors that the machine performed as specified.
Drinking alcohol is called ethanol. Diabetics naturally produce another type of alcohol – isopropanol – in certain stages of the disease. [McShane's note, this si due to the well known scientific phenomenon of the biotransformation of acetone to isopropanol during ketoacidosis-see AW Jones]. Even though Virginia’s breath tester is only supposed to measure blood alcohol content of ethanol it registers isopropanol on the breath of diabetics. This reading results in false evidence which in turn results in wrongful DWI convictions.
An ancient expression about the measure of a society’s morality is how it treats the sick. Diabetics have enough challenges without the threat of wrongful DWI conviction. Join me in challenging Virginia to cease this shameful practice.
I have written before and will state again…
When will the insanity of breath testing and the fallacy of accuracy, reliability and most importantly the specificity of these machines truly come to light? What will it take?
To rely on infrared spectrometry at wavelengths that are not unique as to ETOH is a sham!
To rely on a machine that no one can be confident of the results because it is not open source and truly vetted technology is a sham!
To rely on antiquated science is a sham!
It is time to use modern technology in a scientifically responsible and acceptable way wherein uncertainty budgets and acknowledged shortcomings are presented to juries and not hidden.
I will continue to answer the trumpet call of Bob Keefer and others to join in the fight to cease that shameful practice here for the benefit of all citizens accused of a Harrisburg DUI, a Carlisle DUI, a Lebanon DUI, a York DUI, a Chambersburg DUI, a Lancaster DUI, a Reading DUI and all Central Pennsylvania DUIs.
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