According to a defense attorney, breath-test evidence in 69 more DUI cases was thrown out by a Tucson, Arizona city court judge on November 25.
Defense attorneys have been challenging the accuracy and reliability of the Intoxylizer 8000, a breath-testing machine utilized by the Tucson and University of Arizona police departments on drivers suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol.
In September, Pima County, Arizona Superior Court Judge Deborah Bernini rejected trade-secret arguments and ruled that Owensboro, Kentucky-based CMI Inc. was required to release its “source code,” or software to Tucson defense attorney James Nesci.
Nesci was one of many defense attorneys who said the code was necessary in order to determine what error was causing the Intoxilyzer 8000 to occasionally give results that were inaccurate.
Tucson city court Judge Theodore Abrams became the seventh Tucson-area judge to suppress breath-test results or instruct a jury that the defense was not allowed access to the source code, according to Nesci. Three other judges admitted the results.
Nesci estimated that the total number of Tucson-area cases to be thrown out is now between 300 and 400.
