Minnesota DWI Suspects Allowed to Intervene in Federal Intoxilyzer Lawsuit
Thanks to Barbara Jones, Associate Editor of the Minnesota Lawyer newspaper for publishing an article concerning U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank's decision to allow four DWI defendants to intervene in a lawsuit between the State of Minnesota and the manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer breath machine. That litigation involves access to the source code within the Intoxilyzer machine that is used to detect blood alcohol levels.
Jones' article outlines the fact that Minnesota DWI lawyers are seeking the code, the State of Minnesota doesn't have it and the manufacturer won't produce it, calling it a "trade secret." A recent decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals requires the state to disclose the code. The position of defense counsel is that we need the code in order to understand how the machine calculates blood alcohol levels and, therefore, how reliable the results actually are.
Keep track of the case progress in State of Minnesota v. CMI by periodically reviewing the docket.
