Chicago DUI lawyer says garbage in gets garbage out with Breath Alcohol Computers

This Chicago DUI lawyer has posted here and here about the reasons you shouldn't blow into these machines. Now comes a reminder that these machines are only as good as the people who are supposed to maintain them.

October 9, Houston, TX

More than 1,200 Harris County DWI convictions will be set aside and the cases revisited, prosecutors said Friday after the sentencing of Deetrice Wallace, a Department of Public Safety contractor who faked inspections of alcohol breath testing devices.

“Quite frankly, a lot of these cases are gone,” Harris County Assistant District Attorney Terese Buess said. “A lot of those cases will not have evidence to go forward again.”

About 1,000 defendants convicted of driving while intoxicated can petition for a retrial without evidence submitted by Wallace, the prosecutor said. Some defendants had more than one case affected.

About 1,000 defendants convicted of driving while intoxicated can petition for a retrial without evidence submitted by Wallace, the prosecutor said. Some defendants had more than one case affected.

Buess said Wallace signed off on about 4,000 test slips. Of those, some did not result in convictions and others were not in Harris County. Buess did not know how other counties would address the problem.

Falsified inspections

From 2002 until she was arrested in October 2008, Wallace handled DPS instruments that were used to determine alcohol concentration in DWI cases for at least seven police departments — League City, Friends wood, Webster, Seabrook, Galveston, Clute and South Houston.

In court documents, Wallace told investigators that she had falsified inspection records for both the South Houston and Clute police department Intoxilyzers.

Some of the police departments owned the Intoxilyzers under Wallace's supervision, while others borrowed or leased the devices from her.

Buess said Wallace manipulated the machines instead of changing the reference sample every month, and pocketed $146,000.

Although she was paid for work she did not do, Wallace's impact will be on the hundreds of cases that will have to be litigated again from the very beginning.

“We were astounded to see that there were so many,” said JoAnne Musick, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyer's Association. The group is contacting the attorneys who represented each convicted defendant.

Once contacted, the attorney of record will contact the defendant and determine if they want to try the case again. If the defendant wants a new trial, the district attorney's office will agree to it.

The case will then start over in the court where the conviction was obtained.

So should we really just take the word of the machines?