Case Title: New Jersey v. Cassidy

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2018-11-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
SYLLABUS

This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the
Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the
Court. In the interest of brevity, portions of an opinion may not have been summarized.

                         State v. Eileen Cassidy (A-58-16) (078390)

Argued September 12, 2018 -- Decided November 13, 2018

TIMPONE, J., writing for the Court.

       The Court considers the admissibility of breath test results produced by Alcotest
machines not calibrated using a thermometer that produces temperature measurements
traceable to the standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

       In 2000, the State began using the Alcotest, a product of Draeger Safety Diagnostics
Inc. (Draeger), to conduct breath tests. The Alcotest machine analyzes breath samples,
producing blood alcohol concentration readings used to determine whether a driver’s blood
alcohol content is above the legal limit. In 2004, Dr. Thomas A. Brettell developed the
current calibration protocol while he was director of the State’s Office of Forensic Sciences
(OFS). In 2008, the Court found results from Alcotest machines calibrated pursuant to Dr.
Brettel’s protocol sufficiently reliable to be admissible in drunk-driving cases to establish a
defendant’s guilt or innocence for drunk driving. State v. Chun,  194 N.J. 54, 65 (2008). The
Court also required that the devices be recalibrated semi-annually to help ensure accurate
measurements. Id. at 153.

        During the calibration process, simulator solutions are heated to about 34 degrees
Celsius, the generally accepted temperature for human breath. It is essential that the
temperature of the solution be accurate in order for the Alcotest’s blood alcohol content
readings to be correct. The Alcotest’s calibration procedure requires the test coordinator to
insert a thermometer that produces NIST-traceable temperature measurements into the
simulator solution used to calibrate the Alcotest and confirm that the calibration unit heated
the solution to a temperature within 0.2 degrees of 34 degrees Celsius. When a
thermometer’s temperature measurements are “traceable” to the standard measurements of
the NIST, those measurements are generally accepted as accurate by the scientific
community. There are two other temperature probes used during the calibration procedure.
Unlike the NIST-traceable thermometer, they are manufactured and calibrated by Draeger.

       Marc W. Dennis, a coordinator in the New Jersey State Police’s Alcohol Drug
Testing Unit, was tasked with performing the semi-annual calibrations on Alcotest
instruments used in Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Somerset, and Union Counties. He is
charged with neglecting to take required measurements and having falsely certified that he
followed the calibration procedures. Dennis was indicted in 2016 for failing to use a NIST-
traceable thermometer to measure the temperature of simulator solutions used to calibrate
                                               1
Alcotest devices. When Dennis was criminally charged, the Attorney General’s Office
notified the Administrative Office of the Courts that evidential breath samples from 20,667
people were procured using Alcotest machines calibrated by Dennis.

        Defendant Eileen Cassidy, now deceased, pleaded guilty in municipal court to driving
under the influence based solely on Alcotest results showing her blood alcohol level had
exceeded the legal limit. Upon learning that the results of her test were among those called
into question by Dennis’s alleged falsifications, she moved to withdraw her guilty plea. The
Attorney General moved for direct certification. The Court granted the motion and
remanded the case to retired Appellate Division Presiding Judge Joseph F. Lisa as Special
Master to determine whether “the failure to test the simulator solutions with the NIST-
traceable digital thermometer before calibrating an Alcotest machine [would] undermine or
call into question the scientific reliability of breath tests subsequently performed on the
Alcotest machine.”  230 N.J. 232, 232-33 (2017).

        After an extensive evidentiary hearing, the Special Master issued a 198-page report in
which he concluded that failure to use a thermometer that produces NIST-traceable
temperature readings in the calibration process undermines the reliability of the Alcotest and
that the State failed to carry its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the
Alcotest was scientifically reliable without a NIST-traceable temperature check. The Special
Master’s report is appended to the Court’s opinion.

HELD: The Special Master’s findings are supported by substantial credible evidence in the
record, and the Court adopts them. Breath test results produced by Alcotest machines not
calibrated using a NIST-traceable thermometer are inadmissible.

1. This case is justiciable despite defendant’s passing. The Court will entertain a case that
has become moot when the issue is of significant public importance and is likely to recur.
The reliability and admissibility of thousands of breath samples, often used as the sole
evidence to support a conviction, is of significant public importance. (pp. 9-10)

2. Scientific test results are admissible in a criminal trial only when the technique is shown
to be generally accepted as reliable within the relevant scientific community. Chun,  194 N.J.
at 91. Although the Court recently adopted the factors identified in Daubert v. Merrell Dow
Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,