If you've been arrested and charged with a DUI in Ann Arbor, your police report is 99.9 percent likely to say that the officer smelled alcohol on you - the officer will actually testify to this at trial. Unfortunately for the police officer, alcohol has no smell, because alcohol is odorless. This "odor" is actually from the alcoholic drink, not the alcohol itself.
This may seem like a small difference, but it's very powerful for a a jury to hear an officer go on and on about the alcohol he smelt on my client, and how based upon that fact he then began his investigation and started making further assumptions and conclusions.
Once I let the officer go on and on about the alcohol, I hit them with my zinger "officer isn't it true that alcohol has actually no smell, and it would be impossible for you to smell alcohol on my client" - the officer will either have to then admit the truth and say yes, meaning he was either lying or doesn't know what he's talking about or claim that alcohol in fact does have a smell then he's just flat out wrong on a very important part about the case, which calls into question everything else.
There are a number of other causes for the "smell of alcohol", and this line of questioning can really call into question the prosecutor's entire case based on some lazy police officer testimony.
Alcohol, however, is odorless. Though a defendant who has been drinking does have a noticeable odor on the breath, the odor comes from the alcoholic beverage, not from the alcohol. Police officers should be educated about this and other errors of precision in their testimony.
