Newswire:

Driving Drunk In Licking County

A lot of drunk drivers in Licking County, Ohio, just breathed a boozy sigh of relief.

Thanks to the local deputy yokel in the Sheriff’s Department, all drunk driving convictions in the past two years could get thrown out. [The Advocate][WBNS-TV].

Here’s what happened: In Ohio, the cops check your blood alcohol content using a breathalyzer machine called the BAC Datamaster.

To make sure the BAC Datamaster is working correctly, every seven days a deputy in the sheriff’s office has to test it using a bottle of ethyl alcohol with a known alcohol level.

If the numbers match, you’re good for another week. If the numbers don’t match, you try again then send the machine in to be serviced. No matter what happens, you record the results in a file where they are kept for three years.

Unless you’re the deputy in the Licking County sheriff’s department, that is. Instead, if the instrument failed the test, this genius simply threw the results away. Asked in court what he did with his negative tests for the past two years, he replied, “I disregard…I discarded it.”

Defense Attorney Jon Saia explained, “When he was getting a bad instrument check, he was simply throwing them in the trash and kept running tests until he got a valid one.”

What that could mean: Lots of drivers falsely testing over the limit. (Or, worse, lots of drivers falsely passing the test and getting back on the road.)

What this will mean: Every single case in the past two years where the breathalyzer was used as evidence now must be reopened. In the cases where the breathalyzer was the deciding factor, the court must “err on the side of the defense.”

Also Known As: Lots of wasted drivers get a get-out-of-jail free card.

Barney Fife never would have let this happen!

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