Court Opinion

ID: 9781426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:37:28.626521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:26.363563
License: Public Domain

NAHMIAS, Justice,
concurring.
I join fully in the majority opinion and note that it may have two salutary effects. First, in Lattarulo v. State, 261 Ga. 124 (401 SE2d 516) (1991), this Court held that the results of breathalyzer tests conducted in accordance with the statutory scheme “may be admitted into evidence without expert testimony regarding the scientific theory behind the operation of the test.” Id. at 127. But the Court also said that “[a]n accused may always introduce evidence of the possibility of error or circumstances that might have caused the machine to malfunction,” with such evidence going to the weight of the breathalyzer results. Id. at 126. Under today’s decision, defendants seeking to obtain such evidence from another state must still show the Georgia court that the evidence is “material” to their case as required by OCGA § 24-10-94 (a), but they need not make the more demanding showing required by the now-disapproved Court of Appeals’ decisions.
Second, by applying the correct “material witness” standard, trial courts may alleviate the due process concerns that may otherwise exist (but are not well presented in this appeal) when the State enacts a statutory scheme in which: (1) evidence usually determinative of the defendant’s guilt (e.g., blood alcohol content in a per se DUI prosecution) is tested and reported, not by forensic experts who testify and face cross-examination on the reliability of their methods and the accuracy of their results, but rather by a machine (e.g., the Intoxilyzer 5000) that takes in a specimen from the defendant and, through internal mechanisms and computer code, generates a test report; (2) the machine’s computer code is unavailable to the defendant through discovery or compulsory process because the State avoids possessing it in Georgia; (3) the machine’s test result is admissible at trial through a witness who can say that he was qualified to operate the machine and it operated as designed (see, *405e.g., OCGA § 40-6-392 (a)), but who has no knowledge about whether the machine was in fact designed to produce reliable and accurate results under the circumstances presented; and (4) the machine uses up the specimen, with nothing maintained for later confirmation or independent testing.