There are circumstances where a person can be stopped for a DUI and the amount of alcohol that is in a person’s blood at the time of the stop gets higher as time goes on, and that is based upon how and when and how much alcohol a person consumed. The phenomenon of a person’s blood alcohol rising over time is referred to as rising blood alcohol content. Rising blood alcohol in West Palm Beach DUI cases is a double-edged sword. While the rising blood alcohol level might be the reason a person is charged with DUI, it can also serve as their defense. If you have been charged with a DUI, speak with a skilled DUI lawyer that could use rising blood alcohol as a defense in your case.
How Does Someone’s Blood Alcohol Level Rise?
If a person is in a situation where they have been out for dinner and they decide to have, hypothetically, two shots before they leave and they think it will hit them until after they get home, the person has the two shots and maybe they are stopped for something such as speeding and the person has alcohol on their breath, it may not be in their blood or certainly not to the level that will be over the legal limit but, as time goes on, as the alcohol gets absorbed into the person’s body, the blood alcohol level is actually going up during that time . By the time the person is pulled over, questioned, investigated, arrested, processed, and brought to a breath alcohol testing facility, the blood alcohol level at the time of the test may be significantly higher than it was at the time of the stop because the person did not consume that alcohol within enough time before the stop for it to be fully absorbed into the person’s blood. That is often how rising blood alcohol in West Palm Beach DUI cases comes to be an issue.
When Will a Person’s BAC Be at its Highest?
A person’s blood alcohol level would be at its highest at the time that the alcohol has been fully absorbed into the person’s bloodstream. When a person drinks, the alcohol goes from the person’s mouth, down to the palate, to the throat, down the esophagus and into the stomach. Until it gets absorbed into the person’s blood through the walls of the stomach and the digestive system, it is not going to be in the blood, it is in the digestive system. The blood alcohol level would be at its highest once all of that alcohol has been absorbed from the digestive system and in the blood.
Evidence When Preparing a Rising Blood Alcohol Level Defense
Evidence when making a defense centered on rising blood alcohol in West Palm Beach DUI cases will involve different factors. One of the first things an attorney would look at is any digital evidence from the scene of the incident, to determine the defendant’s level of impairment. If the level of impairment is slight at the time of the scene but then, after they have been arrested and processed and brought to the jail when they are put on DVD again, if they look more impaired than they were initially at the scene, that would be good evidence that a person has a rising blood alcohol level.
Besides digital evidence, they could look to factual evidence that can be supplied by a client as far as what they had to drink, how much they had to drink, and when they had to drink it relative to being stopped by the Police. If the person had two drinks right before they got behind the wheel of a car, that would reflect a very low blood alcohol level at the time they got in the car but, after they’re tested an hour and a half, two hours later, they may have a very high blood alcohol level. That could be used from facts, witnesses testimony, and receipts as far as what was consumed, how much and when.
Results of Breath Tests
A person can also look to the test result themselves. When a person gives a breath test, in order for it to be legally admissible in court, there must be two samples and two valid test results obtained from those samples, and they are usually 5 to 10 minutes apart depending upon the circumstances. If those two numbers show a rising trend, they have an argument that the amount of alcohol was actually rising at the time rather than going down.
If they look at the level of alcohol on a person’s body, it is like an upside-down bell, when a person drinks, it is going to be flat but as it gets absorbed into the body, it is going to start rising to a plateau and then it is going to start falling off. For rising blood alcohol, they are going to argue that the person was on the front end of that bell and below the legal limit at the time the person was stopped whereas maybe by the time they gave the person the breath test, the person was over the legal limit but does not reflect what level was at the time at the stop which is when it’s legal to be over the legal limit, not an hour and a half or an hour later at the breath alcohol testing center. If an individual wants to know more about rising blood alcohol in West Palm Beach DUI cases and how to incorporate rising blood alcohol into their defense, they should speak with a distinguished DUI lawyer today.
