Source: https://www.sanfranciscoduidefense.com/dui-defense/preliminary-alcohol-screening/people-v-williams/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:54:51+00:00

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THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. STEVEN VAUGHN WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.
Linda J. Zachritz, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner and Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Jo Graves, Assistant Attorney General, John A. O'Sullivan, J. Robert Jibson and Charles A. French, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted defendant of driving while under the influence. The People's case included the result of a preliminary alcohol screening (PAS) test showing that defendant's breath registered a blood-alcohol [28 Cal. 4th 411] content of .181 percent. fn. 1 The Court of Appeal held the PAS test result should have been excluded because the California Highway Patrol failed to comply substantially with title 17 of the California Code of Regulations (all references to title 17 are to title 17 of the California Code of Regulations), but deemed the error harmless and affirmed the conviction. We granted review to determine whether the absence of substantial compliance with the regulations justifies a blanket exclusion of PAS results or goes merely to the weight of the evidence.
On December 27, 1997, Gary Pickle's neighbor, Russell Bailey, hosted a party. While the party was in progress, someone drove a pickup truck into Pickle's driveway, spun a tire-squealing "brodie," and sped away. After the driver repeated this maneuver several times at half-hour intervals, Pickle confronted Bailey and a few of his guests, including defendant, whom Pickle had seen driving the truck on other occasions. Pickle's request that he not be disturbed by late-night driving antics appeared to upset defendant, who was agitated and belligerent. Fifteen minutes later, at approximately 1:45 a.m., Pickle heard the truck in his driveway again and called the police.
At approximately 2:02 a.m., Shasta County Deputy Sheriff Scocca arrived and saw a truck with the lights on idling at the side of the road. When she parked near the truck, the driver--defendant--initially ducked under a blanket but emerged moments later disheveled, smelling of alcohol, and slurring his words. No alcohol containers were found in the truck.
California Highway Patrol (CHP) Officers D'Arcy and Barrett arrived at 2:05 a.m. After defendant performed poorly on two field sobriety tests, he agreed to provide a breath sample by blowing into an Alco Sensor IV, which produced a reading of .181 percent. Officer D'Arcy arrested defendant for driving under the influence of alcohol. Defendant refused Officer D'Arcy's request that he submit to a chemical test as required by California's implied consent law.
The CHP had formally approved the Alco Sensor IV as a device to perform PAS tests. The Alco Sensor IV is readied for use by inserting a clean mouthpiece. The device then shows the date, time, and temperature, and indicates it is either unable (NOGO) or ready to test (TEST). If ready, an air blank then records a .000 percent result. Officer D'Arcy followed this procedure; after he observed defendant for approximately 13 minutes, during which time defendant did not burp, vomit, spit up, or drink any liquids, defendant blew into the mouthpiece.
Officer D'Arcy had used the Alco Sensor IV in the field for more than two years. After participating in an eight-hour training session, he received certification by the state Department of Justice in the use of a similar breath-testing device that was used at the local jail. Officer D'Arcy also received approximately 20 minutes of practical training with the Alco Sensor IV; it produced results consistent with those recorded by the machine on which he was initially trained.
The accuracy of the Alco Sensor IV used to screen defendant was verified by periodic testing with a standard .10 percent alcohol solution. The device was deemed accurate if the test solution produced a reading ranging from .09 to .11 percent; if not, it had to be recalibrated. The machine's first calibration, on January 28, 1997, produced a .11 percent reading. Although within the permissible range, the machine was recalibrated to record an accurate .10 percent result. All 19 tests conducted between January 1997 and February 1998 produced readings within the accepted range of .09 to .11 percent. The eight calibrations immediately prior to defendant's test, including the last test on November 17, 1997, produced readings slightly below .10 percent.
The instant trial court questioned whether there was even substantial compliance with the title 17 regulations. Nevertheless, the testing satisfied [28 Cal. 4th 413] the Adams/Bury foundational prerequisites. The court observed (1) the device had been calibrated frequently; (2) it had worked properly on many occasions and would not produce a result if improperly administered; and (3) the officer was qualified and competent to administer the test. The trial court therefore concluded the PAS evidence was more probative than prejudicial. The court observed defendant's refusal to submit to the required chemical test rendered the preliminary test even more probative than otherwise. The court confirmed its ruling when defendant raised an Evidence Code section 352 objection after trial.
We have formulated "generally accepted rules by which the reliability and thus the relevance of scientific evidence is determined." (People v. Harris (1989) 47 Cal. 3d 1047, 1094, citing People v. Kelly (1976) 17 Cal. 3d 24.) In Kelly, we explained a party seeking to introduce evidence based on a new scientific technique needed to qualify the technique as scientifically valid. (Kelly, at p. 30.) Even for techniques thus established, the proponent must "demonstrate that correct scientific procedures were used in the particular case." (Ibid.) fn. 3 Adams applied this latter principle in the specific context of breath tests, and we therefore consider it a proper application of Kelly.
The more likely interpretation is that the court created a new exclusionary rule, excluding the evidence without regard to its relevance. The Court of Appeal candidly noted at the beginning of its analysis that "[its] concern focuse[d] less on creating evidentiary contests and more on a government agency's intentional failure to comply with mandatory duty." The Court of Appeal objected to the agency's apparent indifference to the regulations. "[T]he [CHP] has designed and implemented training and maintenance programs and procedures . . . which do not satisfy the requirements of Title 17. . . . Yet the [CHP] is under a mandatory duty to comply with Title 17." The opinion invoked the "exclusionary rule" as "a judicially created remedy designed to deter such [police carelessness]."
The Court of Appeal's analysis improperly focused not on the propriety of admitting the evidence, but on Officer D'Arcy's carelessness in collecting it. The court then warned that "peace officers and their agencies would be mistaken to assume they may seek haven in the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, for example, and there find a license to be casual or, worse, careless." The defect in this analysis is that the evidence was not admitted under a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, but due to its relevance. Insofar as the Court of Appeal applied an evidentiary touchstone other than the relevance of the evidence, its analysis was incorrect.
Defendant offers a different construction of the court's analysis. He equates the administrative regulations and the Adams foundational requirements, explaining "[t]itle 17, essentially, specifies and regularizes the Adams foundational requirements concerning the competency of PAS tests." There is some basis for finding the Court of Appeal so held. The opinion emphasized the Adams conclusion: " '[T]he validity of the test itself is to be determined in accordance with general scientific standards . . . .' (People v. Adams, supra, 59 Cal. App. 3d at p. 567, italics added.) Those scientific [28 Cal. 4th 416] standards are embodied in Title 17, and the [CHP] will be able to produce such scientifically valid evidence once it brings its training and maintenance program into compliance with Title 17." According to this interpretation, noncompliance renders PAS results irrelevant as a matter of law.
Furthermore, Adams did not provide any indication there was even substantial compliance with the calibration requirements. fn. 5 After noting the regulation ordered testing by the usual operator either weekly or following every 100 subjects, whichever came first, and the consequent duty to report the results to a licensed laboratory, the Court of Appeal merely observed that the operator had not complied with this regulation. (Adams, supra, 59 Cal. App. 3d at pp. 562-563.) There was no indication of how often the device was tested, and therefore no evidence of how substantial was the compliance with the calibration regulation. If substantial compliance had been a basis for the Adams court's decision, it would have cited the substantial nature of the compliance.
 In light of these standards, we find the trial court properly exercised its discretion in admitting the test results. (People v. Ashmus (1991) 54 Cal. 3d 932, 971.) Although the Alco Sensor IV was not tested with the frequency demanded by the regulations, the machine always performed within the acceptable range, and the slight inaccuracies usually underreported the amount of alcohol present. These facts recall French, where the test results were .19, .16, and .17 percent, with a procedural irregularity causing the second result to be .01 percent lower than it should have been. (French, supra, 77 Cal. App. 3d at p. 517.) French noted that not only did the error inure to the defendant's benefit by lowering the defendant's second result by .01 percent, but that the actual results of .19, .16 and .17 percent "were well above the .10 level" of presumptive intoxication. (Id. at p. 520.) The level of presumptive intoxication is now .08 percent, and the Alco Sensor IV here produced results with an error margin [28 Cal. 4th 418] of .01 or less in all 19 checks. From this record of reliability, the trial court could reasonably conclude the results of defendant's test, which exceeded the level of presumptive intoxication by .101, more than 10 times the machine's greatest inaccuracy, tended to establish defendant's intoxication.
Although we reject the Court of Appeal's legal conclusions, we share its concern that laxity in complying with the regulations may undermine the reliability of the test. The trial court said the challenged evidence "push[ed] the outside of the envelope on the admissibility of PAS tests." Compliance with the regulations, by contrast, guarantees the People quick and certain admission of evidence, eliminating laborious qualification, critical cross-examination, and the risk of exclusion. Furthermore, compliance will ensure that the tests retain their reliability, and thus their relevance and admissibility, in the future.
We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
George, C. J., Kennard, J., Baxter, J., Werdegar, J., Chin, J., and Moreno, J., concurred.
FN 2. As the Court of Appeal explained in Bury, title 17 regulations apply to PAS tests that determine the concentration of alcohol on the blood but not those that determine only its presence. (Bury, supra, 41 Cal. App. 4th at p. 1202.) The Bury court properly rejected as dicta the finding in Coniglio v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1995) 39 Cal. App. 4th 666, 677-681 (Coniglio) that title 17 never applies to PAS tests.
FN 5. Although there was no challenge in Adams to the administration of the test or the qualifications of the operator, all three foundational elements must be established for the evidence to be admissible; the chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
FN 7. Nothing found in the truck supports the inference that defendant drank, smoked, or vomited in the two minutes prior to the officers' observation.

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