Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada Supreme Court takes tougher stance on DUI tests

DUI Checkpoint

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

Metro Police Officer Chris Same detains a suspected drunk driver and begins a patdown for weapons in August 2009 at a DUI checkpoint on Rainbow Boulevard north of Cheyenne Avenue.

Beyond the Sun

CARSON CITY – The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that a motorist has to fail only one of two required sobriety tests to lose his or her license for drunk driving.

The law requires that two consecutive breath samples be taken to determine the concentration of alcohol in the driver. It also requires that the driver’s license be revoked if the motorist has a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.08 percent at the time of the test.

Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt ruled that the driver must fail both tests before the state can take his or her license.

In reversing Leavitt's, the court, in an opinion written by Justice Michael Douglas, said that while two consecutive samples are required, “only one valid sample must be over the legal limit in order for the Department of Motor Vehicles to revoke a driver’s license.”

He said the requirement in the law that two samples be taken and that the test results be within 0.02 of each “is merely an evidentiary requirement to validate the test.”

Aundrea Taylor-Caldwell was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol on suspicion of drunk driving in Clark County. She failed a field sobriety test and was placed under arrest.

Taylor-Caldwell was given two consecutive breath tests. Her first sample was under the legal limit of 0.08, at 0.073, but the second sample tested at 0.083.

A state administrative law judge ruled that the license of Taylor-Caldwell should be revoked because she failed one of the two tests. Judge Leavitt overturned his ruling.

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