Calif. high court: Breath test accuracy can vary
Legal News Center
The California Supreme Court has joined a handful of other courts in the country that have said Breathalyzer results mean different things for different people and ruled that suspected drunken drivers can attack the test results in court.
Defense attorneys lauded Thursday's unanimous ruling for deferring to science, which has shown for years that the test results are highly variable. Prosecutors, however, predicted the move will undermine California drunken driving cases.
At issue is how authorities use booze breath to determine how much alcohol is in the bloodstream.
When consumed, alcohol is absorbed in the blood and carried through the brain to the liver and heart before diffusing in the lungs, where it is exhaled in breath.
Authorities now use a nationally accepted scientific formula known as "Henry's law" to convert the amount of alcohol vapor in the lungs to a blood-alcohol level.
The scientific problem is that breath-to-blood ratios vary greatly throughout the population and fluctuate individually, influenced by such factors as body temperature, atmospheric pressure, medical conditions and the precision of the measuring device.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.