STORY: "Breath test brouhaha: OUI (operating under influence HL) cases could face challenge," by reporters O'Ryan Johnson and Jack Encarnacao, published by The Boston Herald on April 24 2015.
GIST: "The state’s alcohol breath test snafu could create a cascade of legal challenges to drunken driving convictions reminiscent of the Dookhan scandal, top legal authorities warned, as the Massachusetts Bar Association has called on Attorney General Maura Healey to take charge and launch an independent probe.
“For me, this falls into the same category as the (Annie) Dookhan matter,” said Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the state bar association, comparing the suspension of drunken driving prosecutions in several jurisdictions over miscalibrated breath-analysis devices to the drug lab crisis that rocked Bay State criminal courts in 2011 and reverberates today. “We have evidence that was introduced into courtrooms that was found to be faulty and potentially that was corrupted evidence,” Healy said. “We would like to see a moratorium on these tests until we figure out what the problem is.” The state bar wants the attorney general to initiate an independent investigation to determine how long the problem has existed, and how many cases were effected.........Dookhan, a state chemist, was convicted of “dry labbing” drug samples — identifying them by sight without testing them — with evidence in thousands of cases. Hundreds of drug cases were overturned, the lab was shut down and the fallout continues. Dookhan was sentenced to three to five years in prison in November 2013. “Here we go again,” said Randy Gioia, deputy general counsel of the Public Defender Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services. “Now we have to go back and look at a lot of different cases.”.........State officials have said they have identified 69 faulty cases after reviewing roughly 6,000. “I think that’s a very conservative estimate,” Healy said. “We don’t know how long this has been going on.” Recent statewide OUI conviction stats were not available, but a report prepared for the Supreme Judicial Court in 2012 found 44,000 statewide convictions or plea deals in OUI cases out of 56,966 dispositions between Jan. 2008 and Sept. 2011. Law enforcement sources told the Herald the breath test problem centers on a discrepancy between what new machines introduced in 2012 consider “calibrated” — giving the go-ahead for a suspect to blow — and what’s called for in state regulations. The manufacturer standards, the sources said, consider a machine calibrated when a sample containing 0.08 percent alcohol concentration returns a reading between .07 and .09. State rules call for a tighter reading of between 0.074 and 0.086 percent. Attorney J. Albert Johnson, who has railed against the accuracy of the breath tests for years, called the development further evidence that breath analyzers are “a fraud and a hoax upon the motoring public.” “The judges in Massachusetts have seen case after case after case of Breathalyzer evidence which has been disproved by experts. They’ve been on notice for years,” Johnson said. “The cases which used the suspect Breathalyzers must be brought forward for either dismissal or a new trial,” he said."
The entire story can be found at:
GIST: "The state’s alcohol breath test snafu could create a cascade of legal challenges to drunken driving convictions reminiscent of the Dookhan scandal, top legal authorities warned, as the Massachusetts Bar Association has called on Attorney General Maura Healey to take charge and launch an independent probe.
“For me, this falls into the same category as the (Annie) Dookhan matter,” said Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the state bar association, comparing the suspension of drunken driving prosecutions in several jurisdictions over miscalibrated breath-analysis devices to the drug lab crisis that rocked Bay State criminal courts in 2011 and reverberates today. “We have evidence that was introduced into courtrooms that was found to be faulty and potentially that was corrupted evidence,” Healy said. “We would like to see a moratorium on these tests until we figure out what the problem is.” The state bar wants the attorney general to initiate an independent investigation to determine how long the problem has existed, and how many cases were effected.........Dookhan, a state chemist, was convicted of “dry labbing” drug samples — identifying them by sight without testing them — with evidence in thousands of cases. Hundreds of drug cases were overturned, the lab was shut down and the fallout continues. Dookhan was sentenced to three to five years in prison in November 2013. “Here we go again,” said Randy Gioia, deputy general counsel of the Public Defender Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services. “Now we have to go back and look at a lot of different cases.”.........State officials have said they have identified 69 faulty cases after reviewing roughly 6,000. “I think that’s a very conservative estimate,” Healy said. “We don’t know how long this has been going on.” Recent statewide OUI conviction stats were not available, but a report prepared for the Supreme Judicial Court in 2012 found 44,000 statewide convictions or plea deals in OUI cases out of 56,966 dispositions between Jan. 2008 and Sept. 2011. Law enforcement sources told the Herald the breath test problem centers on a discrepancy between what new machines introduced in 2012 consider “calibrated” — giving the go-ahead for a suspect to blow — and what’s called for in state regulations. The manufacturer standards, the sources said, consider a machine calibrated when a sample containing 0.08 percent alcohol concentration returns a reading between .07 and .09. State rules call for a tighter reading of between 0.074 and 0.086 percent. Attorney J. Albert Johnson, who has railed against the accuracy of the breath tests for years, called the development further evidence that breath analyzers are “a fraud and a hoax upon the motoring public.” “The judges in Massachusetts have seen case after case after case of Breathalyzer evidence which has been disproved by experts. They’ve been on notice for years,” Johnson said. “The cases which used the suspect Breathalyzers must be brought forward for either dismissal or a new trial,” he said."
The entire story can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
