The two minutes that absolute a repeat driver with a positive alcohol rate of 0.70 | News from Catalonia
The Criminal Court number 2 of Granollers has acquitted a driver who tested positive in an breathalyzer rate, exceeding the merely administrative scope. It gave 0.70 milligrams of alcohol per liter of exhaled air, which is a crime against road safety. The judge acquits him for a technical issue: he did not miss the minimum preceptive minutes between the first and second mandatory evidence. « Between the end of the first test, that is, 2:00, and the beginning of the second, that is, 2:08, 10 minutes had not passed, » says the sentence that acquits the man, 33, with a history of driving drunk behind the wheel. The rate maximum allowed at the wheel in Spain is 0.25 milligrams of alcohol per liter of exhaled air and is considered a crime when it exceeds 0.60 milligrams.
The breathalyzer control was carried out on June 26, 2024. The now acquitted man circulated with his Mercedes van when he underwent an breathalyzer control in the AP-7, at the height of the Vallès rock (Barcelona). The agents considered that “it presented obvious signs of drunkenness, such as pasty and repetitive, decrease in reflexes, false appreciation of distances and that gave off a strong smell of alcohol, ”according to the prosecution of the Prosecutor’s Office. The Public Prosecutor’s Office requested that the driving license be removed for three years, in addition to a fine of 3,600 euros, for a crime against road safety for driving under the influence of alcohol, with the aggravating recidivism, for a conviction in Ibiza in 2018 for the same reasons.
The Mossos d’Esquadra practiced him then the two evidence established by law. In the first, the driver gave a positive rate of 0.74 milligrams of alcohol per liter of exhaled air. In the second, it was slightly reduced, throwing a 0.70 result. In his letter, the Public Ministry adds that the man carried out « several failed attempts » to submit to the test, and that he resigned « expressly to the contrast test. »
During the trial, it was discussed on the different hours consisting of tickets, with start and end time in each of the two tests. The judge considers that the minimum 10 minutes between the two must be computed once the result of the first test is obtained, which was at 2:00, and when the second begins, which consists of at 2:08. In any case, he adds that, beyond the technical debate that can raise the hours consisting of the tickets, « the in Dubio principle prevents the absolute certainty from being obtained that the required time was duly respected. »
The sentence indicates that the defendant did not denied “the consumption of two beers eating”, but it is good for the technical error in the realization of the evidence, alleged by his defense lawyer, Martí Cànaves, of the DMT Advocats office. The judge also affects that neither « the act of symptomatology », in which the agents speak of « smell of alcohol » or « speak pasty » of the accused are symptoms that allow « to consider accredited that the defendant would lead with a determining alcohol rate of criminal infraction. » And finally, he considers that the fact that the accused is Italian can influence his diction in Spanish not to be the same as that of a national. Therefore, it determines that the crime against the Road Safety, in its modality of driving under the influence of alcohol. As nobody has resorted to the decision, the sentence is firm.
