 About Jeffrey S. Siirtola
Arizona DUI
Defense Lawyer
Jeffrey S. Siirtola, PC Jeffrey S.
Siirtola, PC
325 West Franklin 500 East Fry
Boulevard
Tucson, AZ 85701 Sierra Vista, AZ
85635
(520) 792-8388 (520) 452-0197
Cornell
College, B.A., Magna Cum Laude, History and Political Science.
Harry S.
Truman Scholarship; Phi Beta Kappa; Mortar Board; Spanish
Theatre;
Latin American Studies Program, Mexico City.
J.D.
Truman Scholar, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California
at Berkeley.
Research
Assistant to Professor Richard Jennings.
Sustaining Member, National College DUI Defense, Inc (NCDD)
National
Association Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
Sustaining Member, Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (AACJ)
Cochise
County Bar Association (former president)
Drunk
Driving Defense.com (national information resource center)
DUI-DWI.com
(national information resource center)
DUI-Help.com
(national information resource center)
United
States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, San Francisco
United
States District Court for Arizona, Tucson
Cochise
County Bar Association
Advanced
Professional, Technical, and Educational Achievements
1.
National College DUI Defense, Inc., Advanced DUI Training
and Continuing Education;
Summer
Sessions 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 taught at
Harvard Law
School,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Winter Sessions, 2002, 2003, 2004,
taught in
Biloxi,
Mississippi, San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California.
This is
the most advanced DUI practice course offered to a limited number
of attorneys
(approximately 120/year) throughout the United States. It
consists of training based on
a given
factual scenario which each attorney is required to prepare for
trial, opening
statements, cross-examination of arresting officer;
cross-examination of the State or
Government's expert witnesses; presentation of exculpatory
evidence on behalf of the
defendant; and closing arguments, which are critiqued by very
top DUI attorneys and
instructors from across the United States.
Trial
practice training, conducted in small groups, is supplemented by
presentations and
lectures
by top scientists, law enforcement trainers, criminal defense
lawyers, jury
consultants. Student/attendees work in groups with
scientists and criminalists who
explain
the inner workings and advanced scientific developments
regarding chemical
blood,
breath, and urine testing using the same devices and instruments
used in their
own
states or jurisdictions, such as the Intoxilyzer.
2.
Certified Practitioner, NHTSA/IACP Standardized Field Sobriety
Tests
Jeffrey
Siirtola is a certified practitioner of the three standardized
field sobriety tests,
including
the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test; the Walk and Turn (W/T)
exercise,
and the
One Leg Stand (OLS), following completion of the same three day
(24 hour)
course
and alcohol workshop for practicing tests with live human subjects
dosed up
to
different alcohol levels, taught and supervised by Master Law
Enforcement Instructors
Few
driving under influence defense lawyers have gone through and been
certified in this
law
enforcement training.
The
course is based upon the law enforcement Training Manual and
curriculum developed
by the
U.S. Department of Transportation, and upon a scientific study
done for DWI Detection
and Field
Sobriety Tests in San Diego, California, including protocols for
detecting possible
alcohol-impaired drivers by their driving behaviors (driving
evidence); by officer observations
of
subjects from time subject vehicles pull over to right hand side
of road until subjects are
asked to
step out of their vehicles (observation evidence); by proper
administration of three
standardized field sobriety tests (SFST'S)(field test evidence),
resulting in arrest and the
administration of chemical tests of breath, blood, or urine.
3.
Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) Certificate, Operator Intoxilyzer
5000
In 2003,
Jeffrey Siirtola became the first lawyer in the State of Arizona
to purchase his
own
Intoxilyzer 5000 evidential breath testing device, then obtain
operators training
on the
device outside the State of Arizona.
The
Intoxilyzer 5000 is one of two breath testing machines or devices
used in Arizona for
evidential breath testing of persons arrested for DUI under
the Implied Consent Law.
The
machine is manufactured by CMI in Kentucky, and is the predominant
machine used
throughout the United States for breath testing.
Few
driving under the influence lawyers have gone through and been
certified as operators
of this
device under national U.S. Department of Transportation standards
and the Code of
This
course taught how to operate the device, how to conduct valid
breath tests on human
subjects
dosed up to various levels of alcohol; scientific and technical
aspects of breath
alcohol
testing, including photo-spectroscopy, the internal parts and
workings of the Intoxilyzer
5000;
minimum factory recommended maintenance standards for proper
maintenance and
operation
of their machine.
4.
Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT) Certificate, Field
Maintenance/Quality Assurance
Specialist, Intoxilyzer 5000.
Most law
enforcement personnel in the State of Arizona are trained to
operate the Intoxilyzer
5000
breath testing device. Only a small number of law enforcement
personnel are certified
to
conduct maintenance procedures, such as monthly calibrations,
however, on the Intoxilyzer
5000
breath testing device.
Mr.
Siirtola is certified to federal U.S. Department of Transporation
standards under Code of
Federal
Regulations to do field maintenance
procedures and factory-recommended minimum
preventive maintenance procedures on the Intoxilyzer 5000.
Only a
handful of attorneys own their own Intoxilyzers and/or have
maintenance certificates
and the
ability to conduct and critique performance of maintenance
procedures based on
their own
hands-on training on the devices to national factory recommended
maintenance
standards, as opposed to lesser state administrative maintenance
standards.
5.
Certified Instructor, Breath Alcohol Testing (BAT), Intoxilyzer
5000 Operator Course
Mr.
Siirtola recently served as an adjunct instructor
(technical/laboratory instructor) Intoxilyzer
5000
operators course taught to national U. S. Department of
Transporation/CFR standards
with law
enforcement and medical faculty/personnel in West Palm Beach,
Florida.
6. Certified Phlebotomist/Medical
Blood Draw Technician
In
Arizona, small numbers of law enforcement personnel have received
training in how to
draw
blood in clinical settings, have received certificates within
their departments to conduct
blood
draws on possible driving under influence subjects, and are
conducting blood draws to
lesser,
non-medical standards in field situations.
Mr.
Siirtola recently went through training in proper medical
procedures for conducting blood
draws,
taught to medical standards, and received a phlebotomy
certificate, and received a
Training
Manual for minimum safe and appropriate medical standards for
blood draws taken
from
human subjects, after passing an examination and successfully
conducting blood draws
to proper
standards on human subjects.
On
information and belief, Jeffrey may be the only driving under the
influence lawyer in
Arizona
to have gone through medical training for blood draws, and to
have obtained a
certificate from a medical continuing education service provider
as a phlebotomist.
There are
sometimes problems with how police phlebotomists collect blood;
store blood
samples;
and analyze blood that result in inaccurate or useless numbers for
blood alcohol
test
results, which can be discovered and, if discovered by a
knowledgeable defense
laywer, used
to advantage in a blood evidence case.
7. BAT
(Breath Alcohol Technician), Operators Certificate, Intoxilyzer
8000
The
Intoxilyzer 8000 is a new and novel evidential breath testing
device being used in the State
of
Arizona and, at the time of this writing, only five of the other
forty-nine other states. The
State of
Tennessee recently de-certified the device for law enforcement use
in Tennessee,
because
it failed to perform as well, having less accurate and
precise breath test results,
than the
device it was supposedly designed to replace, the Intoxilyzer
5000.
Mr.
Siirtola recently completed a multiple day operators course taught
to U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT) standards on the Intoxilyzer 8000 device at
or near Memphis, Tennessee.
He may be
the only, or one of a handful, of driving under influence lawyers
in Arizona, who
have
training and certificates for the Intoxilyzer 5000, the
Intoxilyzer 8000, the NHTSA/IACP
Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST's); and Phlebotomy
Procedures (blood), and who
has
conducted trainings on the Intoxilyzer, as an instructor.
8.
Expert Certification/MCLE Presentations
Mr.
Siirtola has been qualified as an expert witness on breath testing
by a number of
Mr.
Siirtola has been asked by his peers (and accepted invitations to
lecture/provide
training
to other driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs lawyers), on
subjects
regarding
breath testing and attacking breath test results, and proper
maintenance
procedures for the devices in Arizona and other states, including:
Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (AACH),
MCLE annual event presentation with
expert witness, retired DPS ofr. R.H. Fahrner
and lawyer-owned Intoxilyzer 5000
device, to group of approximately 100 criminal
defense lawyers in Tucson, Arizona.
Two presentations, Cochise County Public
Defender (CCPD) with Intoxilyzer
5000 for device familiarization; techniques and
demonstrations regarding
problems with accuracy and reliability of
numbers on breath test cards, for
Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA),
CLE Arlington, Texas
using a live Intoxilyzer 5000 machine to
demonstrate deficiencies in the
machine to a group of approximately 200 criminal
defense lawyers and
judges at annual driving under influence
technical/scientific evidence course.
Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (OCDLA),
CLE Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Presentation including demonstrations
of deficiencies in the
Intoxilyzer 5000 device, with live machine, at
annual DUI defense seminar,
to a group of approximately 60 criminal defense
attorneys.
Mastering Scientific Evidence (MSE) CLE course
conducted at Georgia Tech campus
and including approximately one hundred-fifty attorneys and top
scientists, including
Dr. A.W. Jones, Likoppeng, Sweden and criminalist Chester
Flaxmeyer, Phoenix,
Technical co-presentation with and at invitation of Mr. William C.
Head (Georgia) and
Mr. Charles Sifers (Oklahoma) on the Intoxilyzer 5000 using
national CMI Intoxilyzer
5000 factory-recommended maintenance guide/standards as primary
source material and
using live Intoxilyzer 5000 for demonstrations to practice group.
Adjunct instructor for Intoxilyzer 5000 operator certification
course taught in West
Palm Beach, Florida (laboratory portion of course using devices
and dosed subjects
for operational testing course requirement).
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