This is potentially huge, when it comes to impaired driving cases

[Rob MacLennan]

Is it an opinion or a fact?

If it's a fact only one expert is required.

If it's an opinion what are the tolerances?

If a faulty reading causes one innocent person to be hit with tens of thousands in legal fees, a criminal record, lose their job, community respect, maybe their house or even family is it OK?

If one family loses a loved one to a drunk driver that beat the system is it OK?

I can't understand the failure to blow reading failure. If the cop sees me blowing into the tube and the device says I'm not wouldn't it be time to put it away?

The proper statement would have been something akin to, "The finding was made on unrefuted opinion of one expert witness."

 

[TwistedKestrel]

Thanks for that reply hedo2002. So, to be clear, "breathalyzer" exclusively refers to the larger, more accurate units?

 

[Blackfin]

The proper statement would have been something akin to, "The finding was made on unrefuted opinion of one expert witness."

A Toronto Star article reads, in part:

"Prior to the trial, Joseph studied the historical data and maintenance and calibration records for the breath-testing equipment used by Peel Region police to obtain a breath sample from Gurdev Singh on March 4, 2014.

Joseph said he determined the instrument’s history was littered with inaccurate results and other failures. He noted that none of the device’s maintenance records explained the malfunctions or what, if anything, police had done to address them."

Would love to see someone refute the history of inaccurate results and "other" failures found within the machine's logs. Hopefully that individual could also explain why the "maintenance" of the equipment failed to determine a root-cause of the malfunctions and why police didn't get them addressed.

Sometimes things just aren't refutable and sometimes, all it takes is one person to expose the rot.

The article continues:

"For that reason, no one could have confidence in the reliability of Singh’s breath-test results, Joseph testified. In addition, Joseph told court that since, to his knowledge, all the 8000Cs used in Ontario lack an “uncertainty of measurement” — an established error rate, used to ensure results account for uncertainty — there is no way to be “statistically confident” about a subject’s breath-test reading."

This claim is potentially more troubling to the drunk driving revenue industry than a single, ill-maintained unit.

While all measurement equipment has uncertainties -- from micrometers to voltmeters to breathalyzers -- this definitely requires the manufacturer's representatives to explain the machine's uncertainties and how their impact on determinations of guilt or innocence.

 

[nobbie48]

Just imagine the amount of people who would try to overturn their previous convictions if this goes through.


Ontario lawyers - "What a time to be alive!"

The cost of the appeal plus if successful the costs of purging of the criminal charge etc. I wonder how many convictions were registered.

Normally one can't sue the police unless malice can be proven. This appears to be more neglect so can the police be sued? In the long run it would be the taxpayer footing the bill, as usual. Statutes of limitations?

 

[hedo2002]

Nobbie48: yes normally when one speaks of a breathalyzer they are speaking of a larger unit, which is often secured in some form to a table top etc, (to prevent a suspect from knocking it off the table top etc). They are generally considered, (by the courts), to be more reliable and accurate than are hand held road side testing devices.