Hennepin County District Court Judge Jack Nordby has issued an order warning that he believes the statutory scheme for penalizing intoxicated drivers is in jeopardy because the manufacturer, CMI Inc., refuses to turn over the source codes. The Court of Appeals has already upheld the suppression of evidence in implied consent cases where the codewhich reveals whether the machine is working properlyhas been demanded but not revealed. The court soon will rule on the issue in a criminal case.
Meanwhile, Nordby has forwarded to Minnesota Lawyer an order suppressing intoxilyzer results unless the source code is revealed within 30 days. History suggests it wont be. Nordby treated the question as a simple discovery dispute but questions, in passing, whether it [is] thinkable, constitutionally, that our society could imprison persons who simply decline to take a test on a machine to whose design, construction, and functioning they do not have complete access?
The case is State v. Littman. The attorney for the state is Jennifer Marie Inz and the attorney for the defendant is Derek Anthony Patrin.
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[Source: Minnesota Lawyer Blog]
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