In 2008, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided, New Jersey v. Chun, which was the first case where the Court addressed whether the source code of the Alcotest 7110 was scientifically reliable. This is the leading case on the issue of the source code. Massachusetts OUI Lawyers are currently conducting a similar hearing for the newer Alcotest machine the 9510. In this Blog, we will review the findings of the Chun case as the decision will have an impact on how the judge rules in the Consolidated appeal being heard in the Concord District Court.  Currently, the Source code reliability hearing is scheduled for March 14 and is scheduled to take until March 17th.

One of the major differences between Chun and the current hearing in Massachusetts, is that the hearing in Concord involves a different machine, the Alcotest 9510, which has a much more complex source code than the Alcotest 7110.  There is currently a hearing in the Ayer District Court on the 7110 machine; this hearing will effect fewer cases as many case involving the 7110 have been resolved; however, it could result in new trial motions being filed should the court find the source code unreliable.

Continue Reading ›

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will decide whether evidence of an unsuccessful attempt to take a breath test was properly admitted into evidence, given the language barrier between the defendant andarresting officer. A non-English speaking woman is arrested for DUI and fails to pass the Breathalyzer – but is the language barrier a valid defense?

                                                                What happened in the case

• A Spanish speaking woman is brought to a police station in Massachusetts after being pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Massachusetts OUI Defense lawyers will have the opportunity to challenge the accuracy and reliability of the breath test used in the State in a State wide hearing that will be heard in the Concord District Court.

The hearing has yet to be scheduled with a status conference coming up on September 17, 2015. The primary issues are anticipated to be the following:

1. Discovery issues regarding the out of calibration regarding the breath test that prompted numerous counties to stop using breath test evidence for several months throughout the summer.
2. Whether errors in the computer source code of the breath test 9510 make the machine unreliable scientifically.

Continue Reading ›

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is requiring the Court to hold an evidentiary hearing on the reliability of the breath test device the Alcotest 7110. The SJC held that the trial judge’s decision not to hold an evidentiary hearing addressing challenges to the reliability of the machine was wrong. The SJC clearly stated that a defendant who makes a proper showing addressing the reliability of the breath test machine is entitled to a hearing. In other words, the Court stated that trial judges are not permitted to assume that the breath test machine is accurate merely because the legislature approves breath testing under the law, but that breath test is scientific evidence that the Court should hold a hearing to address challenges to its reliability.

The SJC indicated it would retain jurisdiction of the case and require a report within 90 days. It appears that the SJC will review any decision of the district court and address the three issues that it indicated were raised by the case.

The hearing in Com. v. Kirk Camblin, will address the following issues:

The Massachusetts Appeals Court in an unpublished decision ruled that the lack of an operator’s manual for the new breath test machine did not bar admission of the test results into evidence. The decision was an unreported decision. This decision has been anticipated for almost a year by Massachusetts OUI Lawyers as it was argued on June 5, 2014. The Court held that the power point presentation was sufficient as training for the officer and that the defendant did not claim that the officer lacked formal training to administer the breath test.

The Court held that the OAT was in compliance with the regulation and even assuming it was out of compliance the Court would not have suppressed the breath test result. The Appeals Court did not read the regulation pertaining to the breath test manual as requiring the Office of Alcohol Testing to create a manual.

Continue Reading ›

The news this week of errors with breath testing in Massachusetts has had a major impact on the prosecution of drunk driving cases and raises the potential of hundreds of wrongful convictions and or wrongful pleas that were not supported by accurate evidence. One reason this has occurred is the ease with which prosecutors can admit breath test evidence at trial. The Commonwealth can admit the results without calling any witness that knows anything about how the machine operates. At a trial, the breath test operator will typically testify that they are taught to push the button, wait for the machine to run its self checks and if the machine does not report any error, the results are fine. The officer will often admit to not understanding the science behind the machine.

The Commonwealth is not required to call any expert witness from the Office of Alcohol Testing to verify the accuracy of the results. In a case known as Commonwealth v. Zeininger, 459 Mass. 775 (2011), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said that breath test records can come into evidence without live testimony because the records are not testimonial, meaning that the Court was saying that the records do not accuse a person of a crime but report “neutral” data. The Court’s reasoning was flawed and allowed evidence to come in a trials without being properly tested through cross examination. In light of the disclosure of the problems with the machine, the SJC should reconsider its decision in the Zeininger case that is partly the cause of unreliable evidence being presented to jurors during OUI trials.

This bring us to the error that prompted many counties to hold off using breath test results, including Suffolk, Middlesex, Worcester, Essex, Northwestern, Barnstable County.

According to a news report in MyFoxBoston, Prosecutions in Essex County have stopped using breath test results as a problem has arisen with the calibration of the machine. This report was confirmed by several other media outlets. According to one report, the problem arose in a case out of the Lawrence District Court where a defendant accepted a plea but the machine read outside of the accepted range but produced a result anyway.

While I have not learned of the exact error at this point, I did experience a similar problem with a case out of the Attleboro District Court. In that case, the breath test machine appeared to produce a result, but when the machine self calibrated itself on a solution that was suppose to be .08, it read .071. When testing the calibration solution of .08, the machine is suppose to be within a range of .076 to .084. In this case, the machine was outside the range, but it produced a test result as if it was working properly. When the error was brought to the attention of the district attorney, the results were excluded from evidence.

There could be other ways that the machine provides a faulty calibration. Until further information about the problem is disclosed, it would be advisable as a Massachusetts OUI Lawyer to delay resolving any breath test case until the Commonwealth completes its investigation.

DUI defense attorneys in Ohio have recently won a substantial victory in the Ohio Supreme Court that will allow defendants to bring stronger challenges to the validity of breathalyzer tests. The Ohio court’s decision will require states to comply with discovery requests by the defendant, and produce critical data and records relating to their breathalyzer devices.

In the case of Cincinnati v. Ilg, the defendant was questioned and tested for intoxication after he lost control of his vehicle and struck a fence, sign, and pole. The officer who responded to the accident administered a breath test using the state’s device, the Intoxilyzer 8000. The device revealed that the defendant had a BAC reading that was almost twice the legal limit. The defendant was subsequently charged with an OUI.

Before trial, the defendant’s attorneys requested that the prosecutor produce records of the defendant’s test, as well as test data, maintenance records, and results produced by the Intoxilyzer 8000 machine used to test the defendant. The purpose of this request was to compile enough evidence to demonstrate the inaccuracy of the defendant’s breath test on the night of the accident, and so to prevent his BAC results from being introduced in trial. The defendant requested records from his own test, as well as for tests conducted three years prior to his arrest, and three months following.

In a recent blog, I discussed a problematic decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Com. v. Dacosta upholding a defendant’s conviction on the charge of unlawful operation with a BAC of .08 or greater, when the defendant’s BAC level was tested approximately an hour after the traffic stop. In so ruling, the Appeals Court denied the defendant the right to present “retrograde extrapolation” evidence, which may have relieved the defendant of criminal culpability in this case.

The defendant in Dacosta asked the trial judge to require the Commonwealth to present retrograde extrapolation evidence confirming that the defendant’s BAC level did not rise between the time of the stop and the time the breath test was taken. Without such evidence, argued the defendant, no reasonable jury could infer the BAC level at the time the defendant was actually operating the vehicle. And since the jury convicted on a per se charge only, the conviction must be vacated since the Commonwealth failed to establish the defendant’s precise BAC level at the time of operation. You can read the DaCosta decision by following this link.

The doctrine of retrograde extrapolation essentially stands for the scientific phenomenon whereby an individual’s BAC level in the past can be determined from a later measurement by factoring the amount of alcohol consumed, the timing of the consumption, the individual’s weight, and any food he may have eaten while or after he consumed the alcohol. In some instances where the doctrine is applied, the individual’s BAC level at a point in time soon after consumption may be lower than the BAC level later in time. That is because BAC is a measure of the amount of alcohol that is absorbed in the blood at the time it is measured; as time passes, the body (liver) metabolizes and eliminates alcohol absorbed in the blood at a consistent rate, while the rate at which the alcohol is absorbed in the blood may vary depending on the amount of food consumed and the weight of the individual. Therefore, as in the Dacosta matter, the defendant’s BAC may have actually been below the statutory limit at the time of operation an hour earlier than when he was tested, depending on his meal earlier that evening.

A state forensic lab has just announced that it will no longer endorse several of its test results used in the prosecution of DUI cases. The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment’s Chief Medical Officer stated last Thursday that the State’s blood test lab will not stand by 33 of the 12000 test results reviewed during the investigation. Experienced defense attorneys may soon take advantage of this breaking news to possibility vacate their client’s OUI convictions or dismiss the charges all together if the prosecution has relied on lab reports released from the state’s lab.

The Department’s Chief Medical Officer sent a letter to a local police chief stating that an internal investigation led to the discovery of an incorrect procedure followed by one of the lab’s employees over the span of 7 months in 2013-2014. According to the letter, this was strictly an isolated incident of human error, and does not effect the results of any other test conducted by the lab.

This news comes less than a year after the criminal sentencing of Annie Dookhan who pleaded guilty to more than two dozen counts of filing false reports, tampering with evidence, and misleading police officers.