If you are pulled over by law enforcement in Colorado and an officer suspects you have been drinking, chances are you will be asked to submit to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test. There are three primary methods used to measure your BAC, and each one comes with its own
Chances are you’ve stumbled upon online articles or videos that claim to offer ingenious ways to beat a breathalyzer test when you’ve had a few too many drinks. Firstly, you don’t want to set out thinking you can drink and drive, as breath test or not, it’s incredibly dangerous. Secondly,
The Colorado Department of Transportation mounted its first DUI enforcement campaign January 14-17. Called The Heat is On Winter Blitz, the initiative also included Colorado State Patrol and local law enforcement. There was a 16% uptick in traffic fatalities involving impaired drivers in 2021 for a total of 246 deaths,
Following is a scenario relevant to the discussion of forcible restraint used by Colorado police officers to extract blood from a suspected drunk driver. The story outlined below conveys in summary form a real-life situation that played out on a Fort Collins roadside. Officers there had probable cause to suspect
It is stressful to see the flashing lights of a police car in your rear-view mirror, and it is natural to have questions as you pull to the shoulder of the road. Are you in trouble? Do the police have a reason to stop you? Will the police arrest you?
Controversy has dogged the breathalyzer ever since an amateur chemist invented the device in 1954. Faulty readings convinced some courts to bar prosecutors from using results against people accused of driving under the influence. Authorities in the Great Lakes region are now investigating whether one manufacturer broke the law to
We recently informed readers of our criminal defense blogs at Shazam Kianpour & Associates in Denver that we would keep them timely updated on a key Colorado change in DUI-linked blood-alcohol testing. As we noted in our August 5 blog entry, that adjustment was material, being “replete with questions and
The thinking of Colorado lawmakers that spurred a recent and material change to the state’s legal blood-alcohol testing regime is clear enough. But it strongly begs this question: Was it wise? What became notably different on July 1 was the dramatically liberalized use of BAC-testing facilities at the Colorado Bureau
A seasoned and aggressive Colorado DUI defense attorney must often rely upon instincts, past experience and creativity when defending a client against drunk driving charges. We note on our website at the established Denver law firm of Shazam Kianpour & Associates that “there are many ins and outs in the
Here’s something to consider regarding personal breathalyzers that retail for about 80 bucks and are currently being touted by Colorado officials: Given that the considerably more expensive and sophisticated breathalyzers employed by the Colorado State Patrol and police agencies statewide are sometimes found to deliver erroneous blood-alcohol results, how foolproof
