Opinion ID: 1989907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Draeger's Role in the Proceedings

Text: During the first oral argument before this Court following the Special Master's release of his report and recommendations, defendants argued that the entire proceedings were tainted by the manner in which defendants were required to proceed. They argued that because Draeger had refused to make its source code available for their inspection and for analysis by their experts, the Court could have no confidence in the reliability or accuracy of the device from a scientific perspective. In short, they argued that the manufacturer's intransigence forced the Special Master and, by extension, this Court, to rely on black box testing, [19] when only a complete and thorough analysis of the source code used to operate the device would suffice for constitutional purposes. Indeed, the refusal of Draeger to intervene precluded the Special Master from permitting any testing of the manner in which the device operates, and required him to rely on tests that at best could only demonstrate that the machine reliably appeared to be able to identify correctly, or at least acceptably within the established parameters, the alcohol concentration of a known test sample. There is some logic to that method of proceeding. If a breath testing device can, reliably and consistently over time, correctly analyze a sample of known alcohol concentration, one might argue that it matters little how the device is able to do so. Notwithstanding the rather considerable force of that logic, we were persuaded that, in light of the constitutional dimension of the issues before us, Draeger's eventual election to intervene in this matter afforded us the opportunity to permit defendants to engage in the technical analysis of the source code that they had asserted was so necessary to the adequate protection of their rights.