Opinion ID: 1989907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Catastrophic Error Detection

Text: Following the remand for source code analysis, the Special Master also recommended that the machine's catastrophic error detection device be re-enabled. He based his recommendation on his findings that the Alcotest's ability to detect catastrophic errors, which was included in the original source code, had been disabled from use in Firmware version 3.11 and that, if utilized, it would ensure that the device would shut down if it encountered such an error. Although defendants agree with the recommendation that this device be enabled in future software updates, they argue that the implications of the unilateral decision of the manufacturer to disable this feature and the use of the Alcotest without this error detection capability must undermine any confidence in any of the results reported. The State, although disagreeing with both the significance of the decision to disable this detection device and with the impact it might have had on any readings by the machine, agrees that the firmware will be revised to re-enable catastrophic error detection. Our review of the record demonstrates that there is ample support for the findings and recommendations of the Special Master concerning this aspect of the source code. The witnesses were in general agreement that the absence of an operational catastrophic error detection device is not optimal, and they candidly conceded that in the interim, and based on these proceedings, the feature has been reenabled for use in other jurisdictions. Notwithstanding that general agreement, the experts disagreed about how the machine would respond if it encountered a catastrophic error. Defendants' expert suggested that the machine might under those circumstances create an inaccurate AIR, although he could not explain, even theoretically, how it would do so. Apart from that rather speculative opinion, the experts agreed that the machine would most likely enter an endless loop of non-productive analysis and become unresponsive. Because there is no credible evidence in this record that an Alcotest machine that encounters a catastrophic error would create, in reaction thereto, an incorrect AIR, we discern no basis on which to conclude that any of the previously-generated AIRs might represent a test in which the machine encountered an error of this magnitude and reacted by recording an inaccurate series of test results. Rather, we direct that the State arrange to have the software corrected to re-enable the catastrophic error detection feature.