D.C. Cop Allegedly Calibrated Breath-Testing Devices to Produce Higher Alcohol-Content Readings

Drivers Can Pursue Cop for Botched DWI Tests
By RYAN ABBOTT
CourtHouseNews
Nov. 16, 2011

WASHINGTON (CN) - Motorists ensnared for drunken driving may have a civil rights case against the D.C. cop who allegedly knowingly calibrated breath-testing devices to produce higher alcohol-content readings, a federal judge ruled.

District officials announced in February 2010 that its Intoxilyzer machines were improperly calibrated to generate higher readings, leading to a swath of dismissed or vacated drunken-driving charges.

The consolidated lawsuit presented claims from 20 different individuals charged and convicted of driving while intoxicated, but just five plaintiffs remain after a previous dismissal order.

They claim that Officer Kelvin King, as head of the Impaired Driver Support Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, calibrated the city's Intoxilyzer 5000EN machines so that they produce readings that were 30 percent higher than a person's actual blood alcohol level.

"The complaint alleges that Officer King learned from the retained expert that his methods were wrong and yet he knowingly failed for years, to make any corrections," U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer wrote. "If true, these allegations suggest the intentional manufacture of false evidence, which has been found to violate due process since Napue v. Illinois."

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