MINNEAPOLIS – Nearly 4,000 Minnesota drunk driving cases stuck in limbo can be returned to their respective counties for prosecution after a District Court ruling filed Tuesday over the validity of Intoxilyzer results.
DWI defense attorneys challenged the accuracy of the Intoxilyzer 5000EN tests and said its technology is out of date. The Minnesota BCA stood behind the Intoxilyzer’s accuracy, but some police agencies have moved toward blood and urine tests instead of breath tests.
District Court Judge Jerome Abrams ruled its results “are reliable and unaffected by actual or alleged problems with the Source Code of the instrument.”
Challenges of test results based on the source code argument are now overruled and evidence of the same should not be allowed.
The court did rule, however, that cases in which the Intoxilyzer 500EN running the 240 software version reported a deficient sample, the source code does impact the reliability of the result. Evidence in such cases should also not be allowed unless other evidence exists providing reasons of testing that support a deficient sample.
The deficient sample issue affects less than one percent of the tests.
Based on that ruling, the court will consider new challenges to the Intoxilyzer source code only if new evidence is shown or substantial new analysis is performed supporting positions not already argued.
Last summer, the BCA started phasing out the Intoxilyzer in favor of a new device by a different maker The BCA said the new devise were part of a scheduled replacement plan.
But defense attorneys who’ve spent the last few years attacking it don’t feel this is a total defeat.
“I think the judge says it’s good enough,” says Chuck Ramsey, a defense attorney who led the attack on the test results. “And what he means is it’s good enough to be admitted into evidence but we can still attack the results and we have mountains of evidence to say this machine is not scientifically valid, reliable or accurate.”
But the Minnesota Department of Public Safety disagrees with their take.
“As far as we’re concerned, this ruling today is great news for Minnesota,” says Doug Neville. “We’ve been saying for years that the Intoxilyzer is accurate, it’s a good tool, and we’ve been proven right today.”
They also disagree that this court case has prompted Minnesota to replace the embattled Intoxilyzers this year with modern systems. “One thing has nothing to do with another,” says Neville. “It was part of our plan all along.”
Source: www.myfoxtwincities.com