BY NATALIE P. McNEAL

nmcneal@MiamiHerald.com

About 300 drunk driving cases in Broward County could be thrown out, following a state appellate court ruling that improper maintenance of the alcohol breath-test machines renders the results inadmissible.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld a judge's ruling to toss out Intoxilyzer results in a DUI case because the machine had been tested with tap water instead of distilled water. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement requires that the breath-test machines use distilled water.

Defense attorneys argued that tap water may skew results. Both the Broward Sheriff's Office and Davie police department used tap water to test the machines.