Minneapolis, MN.  May 1 –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.

But there’s a problem: Prosecutors can’t turn over the code because they don’t have it.

The Kentucky company that makes the Intoxilyzer says the code is a trade secret and has refused to release it, thus complicating DWI prosecutions…

The Intoxilyzer 5000EN is the standard device used by Minnesota police to determine if a driver is impaired. The state bought 260 of the machines from the manufacturer, CMI of Kentucky, in 1997, and state law presumes the devices’ results to be reliable.

The device is used with nearly eight of every 10 suspected drunken drivers who are tested in Minnesota.

But defense attorneys have argued that if they can’t examine the source code, the computer program that runs the machine, they have no way to tell if the Intoxilyzer is reliable. District judges across Minnesota have handled defense requests for the source code with a patchwork of rulings: Some say a defendant has a right to examine it; others say it isn’t relevant…

The Supreme Court said (defendant Brunner’s evidence) “show that an analysis of the source code may reveal deficiencies that could challenge the reliability of the Intoxilyzer and, in turn, would relate to Brunner’s guilt or innocence.”

 

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There are many different kinds of “breathalyzers” or breath testing devices. The first of the modern breath testers, manufactured by Smith and Wesson many years ago was called the Breathalyzer.

When I was a young prosecutor we used to call the Smith and Wesson 900A the “Dial-a-Drunk” because the machine’s dial was able to be manipulated by the operator.

Since then, various manufacturers have recognized the growing market and come out with their own models, bearing such names as Intoxilyzer, Intoximeter, DataMaster, AlcoSensor, Alcotest and so on; most of these products have been produced in different model versions, such as the Intoxilyer 4011, 5000 and 8000.

To deal with the confusion, the term “breathalyzer” came to be used as a generic term for any breath testing instrument.

Most of these are evidentiary machines — that is, larger machines generally kept at the police station whose test results are used in evidence. Others are smaller, handheld units carried by officers in the field; generally called PBTs (preliminary breath tests) or PAS (preliminary alcohol screedning). These are less accurate and are usually used as a field sobriety test to help determine whether to arrest a suspect.

The original Breathalyzer operated using a wet chemical method of analysis, employing a disposable glass ampoule of chemicals. Although still occasionally found in law enforcement, this relatively primitive technology was replaced in later machines by infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography or, mainly in handheld units, fuel cell analysis; a couple of the more recent machines use a combination of infrared and fuel cell.

Here is a great website explaining how these different types of machines work:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/breathalyzer.htm

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