Court Opinion

ID: 9794613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:08:31.113799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:12.292269
License: Public Domain

HALL, Chief Justice
(concurring and dissenting):
I join the Court in upholding the constitutionality of the challenged statutes and ordinances. However, I do not agree that defendant is entitled to a new trial.
In granting a new trial, the majority of the Court reaches out and decides an issue not raised at trial nor raised on appeal. With the exception of the unmeritorious identification issue, defendant’s contentions on appeal are directed solely to the constitutionality of U.C.A., 1953, § 41-6-44.3, which permits the introduction of documentary evidence of acts, conditions or events to prove the accuracy of the instrument commonly referred to as the “breathalyzer.” Defendant attacks the statute on the grounds that it denies the rights of confrontation and equal protection.
Defendant has never contended that the documentary evidence failed to meet the foundational requirements of the statute, or that the trial court failed to make the findings required by the statute before receiving the evidence bearing upon the accuracy of the “breathalyzer.” No such issue having been raised at trial, and no issue pertaining thereto having been raised on this appeal, I do not agree with the majority of the Court that “the record is devoid of any such findings.” On the contrary, it is implicit in the record before us that the trial judge made such findings and thereby satisfied himself that the proper foundation had *1323been laid for the introduction of the breathalyzer evidence. Furthermore, it was not incumbent upon the court, by statute or otherwise, to make written findings, and even if he did not vocalize his findings in support of his decision to admit the evidence, it was incumbent upon the defendant to take exception thereto, if for no other reason than to dispel any notion of invited error.
I am also unable to follow the reasoning of the majority that the affidavits proffered in evidence were inadmissible since they were not made from the standpoint of personal knowledge. My reading of the affidavits reveals that they were executed by the three Highway Patrol troopers who performed the testing of the breathalyzer for accuracy and that they were executed in their capacity as “Breath test technicians.” If they did not personally perform the testing, their affidavits at least support the fact that they personally observed the performance of the tests by' others. In any event, the sufficiency of the affidavits not having been challenged in the trial court, that issue is not before the Court.1
In regard to the assertion of the majority that § 41-6-44.3 requires documentary evidence to be prepared contemporaneously with the testing of the “breathalyzer,” I find no such provision therein. What is required by the statute is set forth in subsections (2) and (3), which read as follows:
(2) In any action or proceeding in which it is material to prove that a person was driving or in actual physical control of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol or driving with a blood alcohol content of .10% or greater, documents offered as memoranda or records of acts, conditions or events to prove that the analysis and accuracy of the instrument were made pursuant to standards established in subsection (1) shall be admissible if:
(a) The judge finds that they were made in the regular course of the investigation at or about the time of the act, condition or event; and
(b) The source of the information from which made and the method and circumstances of their preparation were such as to indicate their trustworthiness.
(3) If the judge finds that the standards established under subsection (1) and the provisions of subsection (2) have been met, there shall be a presumption that the test results are valid and further foundation for introduction of evidence is unnecessary. [Emphasis added.]
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court in its entirety.

. Franklin Financial v. Ponderosa Associates, et al, Utah, 659 P.2d 1040 (1983).