South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

A Tucson Arizona City Court judge has suppressed alcohol breath test results in 49 cases, after CMI, manufacturer of the Intoxilizer 8000, refused to produce source codes.

This same battle has been raging for years across the country. In Florida, CMI refused to release the Intoxilizer source code after the courts ordered them to turn it over, and in some cases CMI was fined for failing to comply. The Florida legislature, prompted by prosecutors, responded by passing a law that states full disclosure in a DUI case does not involve the source code, only the test results and procedure followed. In New Jersey, the manufacturers of the Alcotest breath test were ordered to release the source code to defense experts, who identified serious defects in the software's operations. CMI was ordered to turn over the source code for the intoxilizer 5000MN in Minnesota last year. On the other side of the Atlantic, a Court in Ireland refused to order production of the Lion Laboratories Intoxiliser source code.

The Datamaster machine used in South Carolina, like the other machines above, is only as accurate as the software that operates it, and due process requires that defendants have the opportunity to examine these programs. The software for breath test machines tell the computer and all of its parts what to do before, during, and after the test. The defense has the right to examine and independently test the government's evidence, and this becomes particularly important when the government's key witness is a "black box" that cannot be cross-examined on the witness stand.