Hundreds Of Seminole County DUI Cases Tossed Out
WESH is reporting...
Seminole County judge Ralph Erikson has tossed out hundreds of driving under the influence cases because of a problem involving the test used to tell if a driver is drunk.Read a more detailed account in Today's Orlando Sentinel HERE.
The problem is that the state won't reveal how the test works because it doesn't have that information.
The company that makes the breath-alcohol testing machine won't give it up.
Lawyers for DUI defendants say without that knowledge, they can't challenge the validity of the test. Seminole County's chief judge agreed that it wasn't fair to the defendants.
Check out this article from the American Bar Association's online journal. It
explains things better as to what is going on in this State other than the petty problems between Judge Erickson and the State Attorney here in Seminole.
This is a state-wide issue over a widely used machine, the Intoxylizer 5000, whereby the manufacturer of the machine is not willing to give-up trademarked information to prove its validity.
Read the article HERE.
posted by Pat Campbell @ 9:38 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I found the folowing link very interesting when I typed Intoxylizer 5000 into my search engine.
http://defensology.com/2005/11/05/trust-us-youre-guilty/
It appears that the Orlando Weekly scooped this story last Thursday. (See their article at http://www.orlandoweekly.com/columns/story.asp?id=8554 )
I remember years ago when radar guns were challenged, and it lead to some restrictions, such as speed readings taken as a car drove around a curve are not considered accurate. It also comes to mind that the illustrious lie detector is not accepted by many courts throughout the U.S. despite its early acceptance as scientifically unassailable.
I think Pat was way off the mark this morning when he said it was the job of the defense attorney to prove the machine wrong. What ever happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty? Pat flipped it on it's head. What nasty slippery slope that would be. To get rid of all the undesirables, all I have to do is come up with my own secret machine. Thanks for thinking this all the way through Pat!
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