Law on DWI tests takes effect today

• By MARK BALLARD
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Sep 1, 2009 - Page: 1A

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Starting today, Louisiana drivers face increased penalties for refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test when suspected of driving while intoxicated.

Under the new law, Act 288, a suspect who refuses to take the test loses his driver’s license for one year, up from the previous six-month penalty. If a person refuses the test more than once in a five-year period, the driver’s license will be suspended for two years.

About 39 percent of the drivers across the state refused the test — 7,947 of 20,631 DWI cases — in 2008, according to the LSU Highway Safety Research Group.

“It was simply a product of either the perceived or imaginary thought process of people being advised by legal counsel to not take the test in order to beat it,” said Murphy Painter, chairman of the Governor’s DWI-Vehicular Homicide Task Force.

The task force was the prime promoter of the legislation, which won lopsided approval in the Legislature this year.

“The whole purpose of the law is to have some valid consequence,” Painter said.

“It’ll have zero effect,” said Glynn J. Delatte Jr., a Baton Rouge lawyer who specializes in DWI defenses. He testified against the legislation in April.

“I would never, ever submit to a breath test without also demanding a blood test,” Delatte said.

Delatte said the machine used in Louisiana to conduct breath tests is not up to the standard used in other states. Breathalyzer machines use infrared spectroscopic analysis to detect alcohol vapor.

Some of the tests taken under differing conditions — people suffering diabetes or exposed to the chemical toluene, for instance — will indicate alcohol consumption when none is present, he said.

A blood test is more accurate and does not expose some of those nondrunken drivers to criminal prosecution and mandatory penalties, he said.

Drivers who refuse to submit to the test can ask for an administrative hearing and continue driving, Delatte said. But Louisiana law has become so punitive that submitting to the test could open drivers to mandatory jail time — 48 hours for a reading of .15 — or losing their licenses for a couple of years under specific instances, Delatte, a former state trooper, said.

Drivers are legally intoxicated if they register a .08 percent blood-alcohol reading.