Judge Throws Out Minnesota Intoxilyzer Settlement

Federal judge turns down agreement between state and the manufacturer of the breath test equipment.

A federal judge ordered that a settlement reached between CMI, the maker of the Intoxilyzer, and the state of Minnesota be turned aside. The breath test equipment is used to establish blood alcohol content in Minnesota DWI cases. Drunk driving defense lawyers have argued for access to the source code of the equipment to ensure that any charges filed against their clients are accurate. No one outside of the manufacturer, including the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, knows how the program works, so there is no way to independently ensure correct results. It has also been revealed that CMI has changed the source code without the state’s knowledge.

Last September the State of Minnesota sued CMI, and in an ensuing agreement the manufacturer agreed to allow access to the code. However, the terms of the settlement called for travel to CMI’s headquarters in Kentucky to review the software and there were restrictions on who could view the code and in what format. That led the federal judge to rule that the agreement would not make “the source code reasonably and readily available to Minnesota (DWI) litigants.”

MN DWI defense attorneys are calling the ruling a success. The inability to verify the results of the equipment has resulted in dozens of DWI cases to be dismissed in Minnesota state courts. Each year the Intoxilyzer is used in approximately 35,000 suspected cases of driving while intoxicated in Minnesota.

Have you or someone you know been arrested for DWI in MN?