[olug] Closed Source software and legal loopholes help people evade personal responsibility.

[Jay Swackhamer]

http://tampatrib.com/floridametronews/MGBUBJ5QK9E.html
DUI Defendants Skip Charge By Asking How Test Works

Published: Jun 5, 2005

SANFORD - Hundreds of cases involving breath-alcohol tests have been
thrown out by Seminole County judges in the past five months because the
test's manufacturer will not disclose how the machines work.

All four of Seminole County's criminal judges have been using a standard
that if a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how the
machine works - its software source code, for instance - and the state
cannot provide it, the breath test is rejected, the Orlando Sentinel
reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors have said they do not know how many drunken drivers have been
acquitted as a result. But Gino Feliciani, the misdemeanor division chief
in the Seminole County State Attorney's Office, said the conviction rate
has dropped to 50 percent or less.

Seminole judges have been following the lead of county Judge Donald
Marblestone, who in January ruled that although the information may be a
trade secret and controlled by a private contractor, defendants are
entitled to it.

``Florida cannot contract away the statutory rights of its citizens,'' the
judge wrote.

Judges in other counties have said the opposite: The state cannot turn
over something it does not possess, and the manufacturer should not have
to turn over trade secrets.


-- 
Jay Swackhamer
Reboot The User
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Suite 135
Omaha, NE 68118
(402) 933-6449
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