Dozens of pending driving under the influence cases and prior convictions are now in legal limbo in Summit County after Judge Edward Casias deferred to a new statewide precedent that bars the use of blood alcohol testing machine results as evidence.

The precedent, handed down in an order by Gilpin County Judge David Taylor last Monday, admonished state regulators for knowingly producing falsified certificates attesting to the accuracy of breathalyzer machines in court, a practice the defendant in that case described as “the biggest scandal in the history of alcohol testing.”

The order came after three days and 20 hours of testimony in the case of Robert Friedlander, who was arrested for a DUI while driving near Black Hawk last year but insists he wasn’t over the legal limit.

Given the broad scope of the hearings, Judge Taylor’s order is likely to serve as statewide precedent unless prosecutors successfully appeal the order, said Friedlander’s attorney Danny Luneau.

“There have been judges all over the state who were waiting for an opinion in the Gilpin case,” he said. “I haven’t heard of one judge in the state that hasn’t deferred to it.”

The order potentially affects all Colorado DUI cases from July 2015 to January 2017 that include test results from the Intoxilyzer-9000 machines used in police stations and jails statewide.

Read the full story at SummitDaily.com.