Hundreds of drunken driving cases are under review in Northeast Florida after a panel of judges called into question the reliability of Breathalyzer machines.
A three-judge panel in the 4th Judicial Circuit, covering Clay, Duval, and Nassau counties, issued an order Aug. 12 concluding that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Alcohol Testing Program had been performing unauthorized repairs — rather than routine maintenance — on Intoxilyzer 8000 machines.
As a result, about 950 pending cases are under review, the State Attorney’s Office says.
In a recent First Coast Connect segment, host Anne Schindler spoke with criminal defense attorney David Robbins and retired Jacksonville sheriff’s officer Ken Jefferson about what this might mean for local DUI convictions.
When police suspect that someone is driving under the influence, Jefferson says, they use a combination of field sobriety tests, observations and a Breathalyzer test administered at a jail.
Robbins represented Sergio Rosario Cruz Lopez, who failed a Breathalyzer test and was arrested in 2025 on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville. The three-judge panel suppressed his test results because the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office acknowledged replacing O-rings inside the machine without maintaining records.
The Sheriff’s Office said it considered the work to be maintenance, but the three-judge panel ruled it was repair, which the agency is not authorized to conduct.
Throwing out the breath test result doesn’t necessarily mean the DUI charge will be dropped. Charges can be made based on other evidence, such as bodycam footage.
The Breathalyzer machines used in the jails are sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement once a year for inspection. According to Robbins, FDLE has been recalibrating faulty Breathalyzers and passing their inspections without notifying anyone that they had been miscalibrated.
Because of the lack of record-keeping, Robbins says, courts could re-consider cases dating as far back as 2016. That’s when Florida law changed, preventing FDLE from making repairs. (Following legal challenges, in late 2025, FDLE was again authorized to repair the machines.)
“ It affects every breath case in this circuit, and, quite frankly, it’s now going to affect every breath test in the state,” Robbins said on First Coast Connect.
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