Breathalyzer Battle Nears an End

By Tiffany Sanders, ESQ.

For months, DUI lawyers in Florida have been arguing for the release of the Intoxilyzer 5000 source code. The resistance has come not from courts or prosecutors, but from the manufacturer of the breathalyzer machine.

The company argues that the source code is a “trade secret”, and refuses to turn the information over to prosecutors and DUI attorneys.

DUI lawyers have argued that without access to that information, they can’t evaluate possible challenges to the validity of the breath test results, which are usually the primary evidence in a DUI offense.

Courts have taken the argument seriously enough that more than 400 cases currently hang in the balance–and many more could be affected, since the Intoxilyzer 5000 is or has recently been used in as many as twenty states.

Judges heard testimony this week to help them determine whether the reliability of the machines could be determined by conventional means or the source code was necessary to assessing their accuracy.