Ethics

Another Breathalyzer Company Refuses Source Code

By Ed Brayton

For the second time this year (here's the first), a court has issued a ruling that may void a large number of drunk driving convictions because the company that makes the breath test machine refuses to turn over the source code so that defense experts can test the accuracy of the machines.

Minnesota may be forced to drop thousands of driving-while-impaired cases and change the way it prosecutes others in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling Thursday, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed.

The state's highest court ruled that defendants in drunken-driving cases have the right to make prosecutors turn over the computer "source code" that runs the Intoxilyzer breath-testing device to determine whether the device's results are reliable.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 08, 2009 (boomark / email).