Mike Nichols, a Lansing OWI-OUIL-DUI expert, attorney, author and adjunct law professor, taught Michigan lawyers on Retrograde Extrapolation at the Institute of Continuing Legal Education. “It was an honor to speak for such a prestigious group,” Nichols said. Retrograde extrapolation is a technique that uses a mathematical formula to determine a blood or breath alcohol concentration or some other piece in a legal puzzle such as the amount of alcohol consumed by using reasonable scientific assumptions. It is predicated on the research of Swedish scientist Erich Widmark. “The key to solving this mysterious testimony that expert witnesses often present is that it is predicated on assumptions,” said Nichols.
Nichols also gave a presentation to the Ingham County Bar Association Criminal Law Section on measurement uncertainty. Uncertainty is the concept that all measurements are imperfect and do not accurately measure the true value of something being measured, typically alcohol in breath or blood. Nichols is litigating a case in Michigan on the forefront of the uncertainty concept that also led the Michigan State Police to change the way it conducts blood alcohol measurements. |