Fact pattern
On the evening of July 19, 2025, the California Highway Patrol conducted a lawfully announced sobriety checkpoint on Highway 50 near Rancho Cordova. Diego Garcia, a 34-year-old Sacramento resident with no prior criminal record, was stopped in the checkpoint lane while returning home from a social gathering. After officers detected a mild odor of alcohol, Garcia was directed to a secondary screening area, where he submitted to a standardized field sobriety test and then a breath test administered on a Drager Alcotest 9510 device. The device returned a reading of 0.09 BAC, marginally above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Garcia was cooperative throughout the encounter and made no statements incriminating himself beyond the testing results.
Garcia’s defense counsel, upon reviewing the full discovery package, identified that the calibration log for the specific Drager device used at the checkpoint contained a gap: the log shows a calibration entry approximately 45 days before the arrest but does not reflect a required interim inspection that CHP protocol specifies at 30-day intervals for devices in active checkpoint rotation. Garcia disputes that the device was accurately calibrated at the time of his test. No blood draw was taken; the prosecution’s case rests substantially on the breathalyzer result and the officer’s field sobriety observations. Garcia’s counsel has engaged a forensic toxicologist to provide an expert opinion on the impact of calibration gaps on the reliability of breath alcohol readings.
The checkpoint itself was conducted in compliance with the procedural requirements established by California courts, including advance public notice and neutral vehicle selection protocols. The sole evidentiary challenge centers on the accuracy and reliability of the breath testing equipment rather than the legality of the stop or the checkpoint operation generally.
Procedural posture
Garcia was arraigned in Sacramento County Superior Court in September 2025 and entered a not guilty plea to one count of misdemeanor DUI under Vehicle Code section 23152(b). Defense counsel obtained the full discovery package and filed a pretrial motion to suppress the breathalyzer result based on the identified calibration log deficiency. The People’s opposition is pending, and the court has scheduled a hearing on the suppression motion. No trial date has been set; resolution of the pretrial motions will significantly affect the trajectory of the case.