In Ohio, the law prevents defendants in drunk driving cases from making general challenges about the reliability or scientific accuracy of breath-testing devices. This means lawyers can’t argue before a jury that all breathalyzers are inaccurate and thus the results from a particular case should be dismissed. However, under the new approach endorsed by the Supreme Court, lawyers are allowed to challenge the results and reliability of specific machines.
The trouble for prosecutors is that, as it currently stands, the Ohio Department of Health lacks the ability to collect and distribute testing information about each specific breath-testing machine. The Department has said that it lacks the employees and technology to create such a database. However, the Court was unconvinced with this argument.
The Court’s opinion noted that defendants in drunk driving cases have the right to information about a machine’s accuracy, calibration and other matters. Just because a state has approved the use of a machine does not prevent the accuracy of the device from being challenged.
Defense attorneys argued that the Department of Health is easily able to provide such information, but refuses to do so because of reliability issues with the machines. In fact, the Intoxilyzer 8000 is a device that has been challenged for years based on its accuracy and is not allowed into evidence in some courtrooms in Ohio as a result.
DUI defense experts believe the ruling could result in big changes in the way that breath tests are taken and data is stored in Ohio. If the Department of Heath doesn’t make changes, and quickly, to the way it categorizes testing data then other suspects could also have their results dismissed when the Department fails to provide the requested information.
Source: “Court ruling allows challenge to DUI breath tests,” by Randy Ludlow, published at Dispatch.com.