Blood Testing in DUI Cases

Blood testing is becoming more and more popular when it comes to DUI testing. Instead of using the breath testing instruments, most of the law enforcement agencies are now taking blood tests. The officers in the state of Arizona are drawing the blood of the drivers themselves instead of sending them to a medical facility for the test. Not a very long time back, Arizona was the only state where the officers were required to draw the blood of the people who they suspected to be driving under the influence of alcohol. Even though people are not sure whether all officers are carrying out this test, Arizona has still made a name for itself for being a leading state where its officers carrying out blood tests and it has also influenced other states to follow this act.  Many Phoenix criminal defense attorneys have handled cases involving blood samples collected directly by the police.

Some Phoenix area DUI officers have been trained as phlebotomists and are regularly taking blood samples from DUI suspects themselves. Mostly, the officers are trained to draw blood and they use needles to take out the blood samples from the suspects. The tubes that they use to store the blood in contain an anticoagulant and preservative so that the blood test can give an accurate result. By using the preservative, bacteria will not grow in the blood. If bacteria grow in the blood then it will lead to the neo-genesis of alcohol present in the blood. Anticoagulant is added in the tube so that the blood that is collected will not clot.

There is a reason why the law prefers blood testing and this is because of the fact that this test can not be challenged by defense attorneys. This is because blood tests are more reliable than breath testing. There is a drawback of this kind of testing and it is that the process is a complicated one, costs more and the results take longer to obtain.  Nevertheless, a skilled Scottsdale DUI defense attorney may still be able to successfully attack the reliability of a blood test in a DUI case.