Rising Blood Alcohol Defense in Maryland

Rising blood alcohol means that somebody’s alcohol concentration level could theoretically go up between the time that they were stopped by an officer and the time that they were actually placed under arrest. It is an argument that can be made to the Court that a particular alcohol level might have been considerably lower at the time that an officer actually stopped an individual versus when they were at the station taking a Breathalyzer Test. With the assistance of a Maryland attorney, this argument can sometimes be used as a successful defense against DUI charges.

How Rising Blood Alcohol Occurs

Rising blood alcohol is the argument that when a person was actually pulled over by police, they might not have been under the influence of alcohol or might have been considerably less intoxicated or impaired than was alleged by the police officer based on the readings at the station. This can be attributed to a lot of different things. It could be attributed to having a drink just before getting behind the wheel of a car where one might have been completely sober at the time that they were driving, but the alcohol begins to effect them and increased their alcohol level 10 to 15, or 20 to 30 minutes later, after they’ve been taken to the station and had a Breathalyzer test.
Other circumstances that might attribute to rising blood alcohol levels, such as metabolism or other medical conditions that might need to be addressed in court to determine whether or not they could constitute a valid defense in a case like this.

When BAC is at the Highest

It’s impossible to know for sure when a person’s blood alcohol content will be at its highest. BAC depends on a variety of factors, including a person’s body weight, the time that they started drinking, the time that they stopped drinking, how much food they consumed during the course of the day, how much exercise they have had, how hydrated they were, and how much sleep they have had. There are too many factors to know for sure when blood alcohol will peak.

Using Rising Blood Alcohol as a Defense

A Maryland lawyer will prepare a rising blood alcohol level defense if he or she has a client who might have had medical conditions that would indicate a rising blood alcohol level as a possibility or if the client gave an indication that they had a drink literally moments before they had stepped into their vehicle and were stopped shortly later with a blood alcohol concentration that was much lower.
Rising alcohol level or BAC level defenses are rare in terms of their success and are not always the first strategy that an experienced DUI lawyer is going to employ. Rising blood alcohol is a very rare defense for a judge or a jury to find persuasive. But if there is medical documentation to back it up and if a doctor will testify to the client’s particular condition at that time, jurors or a judge may be persuaded by that scientific evidence as to why a person’s body might have reacted to the alcohol the way that it did.

Benefits of Contacting a Lawyer for Defense

Lawyers in Maryland can help someone charged with a DUI sift through the documents that they have received to determine whether this defense is something that will work in their particular case and if it deserves to be evaluated under the circumstances that they are in. A defense attorney will be able to work with medical experts to have the testimony brought to the finder of fact who can make a decision as to whether or not the State has met its burden of proof.