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DUI Defendant Wins Source Code to Breathalyzer
MyrddinBach writes "CNet's Police Blotter column looks into a Minnesota drunk driving defendant case with a twist. The defendant says he needs the source code to the Intoxilyzer 5000EN to fight the charges in court. Apparently the company has agreed to turn over the code to the defense. 'A judge granted the defendant's request, but Michael Campion, Minnesota's commissioner in charge of public safety, opposed it. Minnesota quickly asked an appeals court to intervene, which it declined to do. Then the state appealed a second time. What became central to the dispute was whether the source code was owned by the state or CMI, the maker of the Intoxilyzer.'"
10 print "U R DRUNK!!!"
20 GOTO 10
The code is owned by the company that makes the equipment. So what? Information which matters in a court case gets subpoenaed all the time. What makes software any different then private mail, bank account records, or anything else?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
He's innocent until proven guilty.
What's it written in? Double Visional Basic? Lishp?
Brainf**k maybe...
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Before you hang the guy, perhaps we should consider he may be on a low-carbohydrate diet and the unit fails to distinguish acetone from alcohol.
Just four months ago a Virgin Atlantic pilot was arrested and taken off the aircraft he was the pilot of for a flight from Heathrow to JFK. Several days later, all charges were dropped when the results of the blood tests proved him innocent.
Pilot arrested on drink charge
Diet clears drinking-arrest pilot
LOL, a very US-centric, M.A.D.D brainwashed view... (wash "Won't someone think of the CHILDREN!!" rinse repeat)
Why don't we just bring back prohibition while we're at it?
Having spent time in North Italy (Lots of mountain roads), I can say that I saw many people out to lunch split a bottle of wine between 2 or 3 people, and drive back to work. In all my time there, I didn't see one wreck. Not one.
I come back stateside and in one day see 10 obviously fatal wrecks on one road. Flat dry pavement.
Speed doesn't kill. Some alcohol doesn't kill. An extremely lax drivers education/training/licensing policy coupled with general distraction and self-ceneredness (I'm the king of the road get the hell out of my way so I can get my snot-nosed brats to soccer practice) absolutely does. Speed and alcohol can make that worse, but they are far far from the boogieman many idiots in the US make them out to be.
I say fix the real problems, and roll back the levels to where they were in the 70s, enforce those levels effectively, and shut the hell up and stop harassing relatively innocent tax payers.
My $0.02US.
I've said it before tho...and this does differ in many states, but, if I got pulled over, and knew I'd blow more than the ridiculously low 0.08, I'd do what a lawyer told me. Not say a word, not take any field tests, just hold my hands out for the cuffs and refuse to take any tests. All those field tests do is allow them to collect evidence on you on camera. With no evidence...they can't prove you were intoxicated. In many places, yes, you'll lose your license for a year...you'll probably get hit with wreckless driving....but, you won't get a DWI on your record which can nowdays hurt you on job applications, credit...and certainly your insurance.
If you're drunk...you are going to jail...but, you don't need to help them collect evidence against you.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's exactly what the state is worried about. If he does find a bug and is acquitted, suddenly every DUI conviction using data provided this device has to be thrown out. The state doesn't really care about releasing the source code, it cares about maintaining the convictions.
:(
If they were convicted by evidence from defective equipment, it SHOULD be thrown out. That is a founding principle of our system of justice. We as a society prefer that the guilty walk rather than imprison the innocent; or at least we as a society used to think that... and I still do... but I don't think I speak for society anymore.
That said, even I don't think a found bug should be an automatic acquittal. After all it could be reading lower than it should have been! But yeah, if they find a bug that caused it to read double the actual amount under various circumstances then I would have no qualms about throwing out any DUI convictions it caused.
I work as a law clerk for a judge in Minnesota, and have written opinions regarding this very matter. Luckily, my judge agrees with me that people's liberty's should not be dependent on the financial interests of private businesses, and we have forced the state to disclose the source code when we get the motions. Of course, the state has not yet done so. As the Asst. Attorney General said in court just a couple days ago, "CMI simply will not give the source code to us. We're supposed to own it, but they just won't give it to us. I'm not sure what to do at this point."
This will probably lead to hundreds of implied consent motions being decided in favor of the driver (which means he gets his license back, and doesn't relate to the criminal charges) and it remains to be seen how courts will hold in criminal matters, but I'm guessing many of them will follow the Underdahl court in forcing the state to disclose it.
As I've explained to my judge: essentially, states needs to learn that it is a very bad idea to sign contracts to acquire closed source devices to which they will have no access or ability to test. The same goes for voting machines.
Personally, I'm VERY conservative when it comes to DUI cases, and I very, very rarely side with the driver. But in this case, I've decided it's worth it to throw out a few of them if it means fixing "the system", not just for the intoxilyzer code, but for more important things like the voting machines.
On another note, I'll be writing a more thorough order requiring the use of the source code, and as one of the few law clerks around that has a CS degree, it'll get used by plenty of other judges. So if anyone has any suggestions on good, succinct public-policy based rationale, I would certainly like to read them.
...you'll probably get hit with wreckless driving....
Yeah, I once had wreckless driving put on my record. My insurance premiums blew through the cellar.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
First of all, you need to cite some sort of source for a statement like that. (A review by Fell and Voas reports that reducing the legal limit from 0.10 to 0.08 reduced alcohol-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities by between 5% and 16% in the United States; they report further statistically significant reductions in fatalities in jurisdictions that have moved to a limit of 0.05.)
Second - as other posters have noted - how prepared are you to deal with a surprise abnormal condition?
Third, nice weasel word--below any 'significant' level of impairment? What does that mean?
Fourth, I should hope that the limit would be below the level of significant impairment under any condition. There's no compelling reason why anyone should have to drive with any alcohol in their blood; any limit ought sensibly to include a margin of safety.
~Idarubicin
I'll bite. You are an AC Cave Troll. You are scum.
I have lived past friends who thought they could drink and drive and worse, friends who were the victims of others who thought they could drink and drive. Nothing quite brings this whole issue home like the death of an 8 year old child. He was in the back seat on the way home rom a late visit to his grandparents in northern Indiana. His parents never saw the driver coming. He had his lights off. He hit them at about 60 miles per hour. T-Bone right where their son was sitting. He lasted about a week without ever gaining consciousness before he died.
While in California, I was able to do a drink and drive course. I don't know if they do those anymore, but it was very educational. Alcohol impairs your ability to perform any function. Period. It is not a question of what it does, but how badly it does it. The law allows a few drinks over time. I would allow none.
It is irresponsible, selfish and childish to drink and operate any machinery that could be dangerous. I would like to see much stiffer sentences for drunk and/or impaired driving and tickets for anything that impairs a person's driving. There is no excuse for it. You can argue with me all you want. You can call me names, you can hate me, but none of that brings back my dead friends.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
My mom was a juror for a drunk driving case. The defendant (who had only came into town that day) met someone who invited him to a party. He went, and after he drank some alcohol, the others there assaulted him. He went outside, but they followed him.
Being in immediate physical danger, and there not being anyone sober around who wasn't threatening him, he had no choice but to drive.
Was he foolish? Yes. Criminally so? No. He could not have anticipated the urgent need to drive by himself, and the risk of causing death or injury by driving wasn't nearly as high as the risk would have been if he had stayed and let them pummel him.
BTW, I've never drunk alcohol and never will, so don't write me off as someone carelessly excusing his own foolish hobbies.
This is not a signature.