Certification Flaws Helping Clients Dismiss Cases

Recently I have taken note of unfolding events within the State of New Hampshire regarding state defense attorneys attempts to dismiss dui cases as a result of faulty officer certification processes. Although each state may have their own distinct procedures by which to lawfully certify the admissibility of breath test results, the fundamental underpinnings behind the reliability of breath alcohol testing within dui cases nationwide rests with the proper certification of breath test machinery as well as the administrators of such testing.

While I cannot claim to be an authority on New Hampshire DUI law and procedure, I can assert that the problems being exposed within that state pertaining to the viability of dui prosecutions is not isolated to New Hampshire. Over the past few decades all states in one degree or another have not been immune to significant problems as related to public confidence in the credibility of breath or blood draw test results used to criminally convict good people being accused of drunk driving offenses.

Within Indiana, crime lab flaws as to the proper safeguarding of evidence related to alleged owi test results has been a significant concern among defense attorneys seeking reliable information with which to affirm alleged misconduct; misconduct able to preclude admissibility of flawed testing bac and/or blood draw results.

Thus far, although Indiana courts have acknowledged the reality that Indiana crime lab problems may carry the potential to cast aspersions upon evidence put forth within dui prosecutions, the courts have not found sufficient cause within which to overturn a sufficient number of case convictions to carry out true reform in this area.

Indiana is not alone in its reticence to confront exposed evidentiary flaws in the way alleged credible evidence is formulated if it means the invalidation of prior dui convictions.

I suspect that the most recent media attention devoted to the complete lack of police officer compliance to certification rules within New Hampshire will soon be swept under the rug in favor of the next target of media attention.

Failure to to pay more attention to such significant acts of malfeasance threatens the credibility of the way legal prosecutions are carried out within the State of New Hampshire and throughout the nation.

To cavalierly dismiss the notion that the amount of police officials referenced who neither cared to take the time to become certified and/or re certified to administer breath tests should be an unsettling reality to all Americans traveling the nations’s roadways each and every day.

As formerly stated, New Hampshire is not alone in representing the potential arrogance among law enforcement officials confident that failure to abide by the rules of certification requirements will be overlooked by political judges.

As such too many bad police officials become emboldened and empowered by a consistent lack of accountability on the part of judicial officers; primarily state court judges not wanting to offend police unions or appear soft on crime by dismissing dui cases due to lack of foundational requirements to prove bac impairment.

In this state I have thankfully not needed to confront such police misconduct on the scale exposed within New Hampshire. I am curious to know how such procedural misconduct could be permitted to continue unabated without the universal dismissal of dui cases within pre trial procedural motions as would be done by competent attorneys within Indiana.

In the state of Indiana, if a police office officer entrusted to perform dui arrests has not been certified and re certified to perform certified breath testing within specific times periods strictly governed by procedural rules, such test results can and should be excluded from case consideration.

As a result, the impact of case dismissals prompted by a lack of certified breath test results has served to compel compliance within this state, and I choose to believe most others, in ensuring that breath test results put forward within dui prosecutions carry the base level of credibility authenticated by the proper certification of breath test machinery and officers alike.

Thereafter, attacks on the credibility of the bac results can at a minimum focus on legal procedural issues apart from the mere certification of machinery and police officers that all accused of dui crimes have the right to expect.

As I am prone to do, I will be curious to follow the emerging developments within these most recent New Hampshire legal accounts and observe to what extent significant reform will be truly implemented.

Only by focusing attention on such misconduct can public pressure be exerted to effectuate true reform within such areas of criminal justice reform.

Unfortunately, the true impediment to such corrective action inevitably comes from political leaders who simply choose to believe that the general public is without true passion to act upon such issues.

In fact, in my experience It has been true that the general public has simply never been mobilized to protest in sufficient measure in areas of criminal justice reform if it means that drunk drivers could in any way prove to benefit from such reform.

However, it is incumbent upon all leaders of good conscience to communicate the message that an allowance for law enforcement misconduct is to permit the further erosion of the criminal justice system as we know it.

Although we as citizens may look upon such news reports in our capacities as innocent bystanders, it is not at all uncommon that the cross hairs of such legal misconduct may inevitably be trained upon you or someone you care for sometime in the future.