The Intoxilyzer 8000: How Florida's Breath Test Machine Became Untouchable

The Machine Arrives (2006)

In 2006, Florida deployed the Intoxilyzer 8000 statewide as the official breath alcohol testing device for DUI enforcement. Manufactured by CMI, Inc. of Kentucky, the machine was supposed to be the gold standard for determining blood alcohol content. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) certified it. Prosecutors relied on it. Thousands of DUI cases would turn on its results.

But problems emerged almost immediately.

In October 2006, just months after deployment, FDLE sent a letter acknowledging software flaws in the machine. This wasn't a minor calibration issue. The agency responsible for certifying the device was admitting, in writing, that the software had problems.

The defense bar took notice. Attorneys across Florida began demanding access to the machine's software to verify whether the results it produced were accurate. What followed would become one of the longest-running legal battles in DUI defense history.

The Defense Bar Fights Back (2006-2014)

Two names became synonymous with the Intoxilyzer 8000 challenge: Stuart Hyman and Joerg Jaeger. These Orlando-area defense attorneys invested thousands of hours over more than 25 years challenging the machine's reliability. Their work would expose fundamental problems that the state would ultimately choose to ignore.

Their core argument was simple: defendants have a constitutional right to challenge the evidence used against them. If the state wants to use a machine's reading to prove intoxication, the defense must be able to verify that the machine works correctly. To do that, they needed access to the source code.

The victories extended beyond Orange County. Defense attorneys won motions excluding breath test results in Miami-Dade, Sarasota, Seminole, Lake, and Monroe counties. Judges across Florida were concluding that without access to verify the machine's reliability, the results couldn't be trusted.

In 2014, Orange County judges ruled that defendants were entitled to "effective access" to the software. This was a watershed moment. The court recognized that due process required more than just trusting that a machine worked correctly.

The Source Code Scandal (2011)

Then came the bombshell. In June 2011, CMI disclosed that the engineering notes for early software versions (v8100.13 and earlier) were lost. Not misplaced. Not archived somewhere. Gone.

This wasn't just a documentation problem. Without engineering notes, there was no way to verify what the original approved software actually did. No way to confirm it worked as intended. No way to trace changes between versions.

Defense attorneys also discovered something else troubling: certified FDLE records contained physically impossible results. Test results showed breath volumes of 10-11 liters. A normal human breath is about half a liter. A very deep breath might reach 4-5 liters. No human being can exhale 10-11 liters in a single breath. The machine was recording results that couldn't have happened.

FDLE's response to these concerns was dismissive. When confronted with anomalies in the data, officials essentially argued that in millions of tests, there would be outliers. The systemic issues that defense attorneys had documented were treated as statistical noise rather than evidence of fundamental problems.

The Legislature Responds (Post-2014)

When courts started ruling that defendants deserved access to verify the machine's reliability, something remarkable happened. But it wasn't what you might expect.

The state didn't fix the machine. It didn't update the software. It didn't address the documented problems. Instead, the Florida Legislature changed the law.

This was a legislative response to a constitutional problem. Courts had recognized that due process required access to verify the evidence. The Legislature's answer was to change what "access" means.

CMI had already positioned the source code as a trade secret, refusing full disclosure. Now that protection was codified in Florida law. The machine that hadn't been updated since 2012 was now legally shielded from the kind of scrutiny that had exposed its problems.

Timeline: The Intoxilyzer 8000 in Florida

What This Means for DUI Defendants Today

The Intoxilyzer 8000 is still in use across Florida. The same machine. The same software, frozen at version 8100.27 since 2012. The iPhone was on version 5 when this software was last updated. The world has changed dramatically, but Florida's breath test machine has not.

This matters because breath test results are often the most critical evidence in DUI cases. A reading over 0.08 creates a legal presumption of impairment. That presumption can mean the difference between a conviction and an acquittal, between keeping your license and losing it, between a job and unemployment.

This is why understanding the machine's history matters. A defense attorney who knows what's wrong with the Intoxilyzer 8000 can identify weaknesses in the state's case that others might miss. The problems documented over nearly two decades of litigation don't disappear just because the Legislature changed the rules.