Minnesota Intoxilyzer 5000 Source Code Update: Judge Extends Timeline on Thousands of DWI Cases

Posted On August 11, 2010 by Charles Ramsay

Today, Judge Abrams issued an order extending the timeline for the consolidated Minnesota Intoxilyzer 5000 source code cases. In his order, the judge set the final hearing to start on December 18, 2010.

The source code coalition requested this extension about a month ago, due to delays caused by CMI, the manufacturer of the breath test machine. Most troubling was the fact that CMI recently notified the Source Code Coalition that it had provided us with the "wrong| source code. Instead of reviewing the actual source code used in Minnesota, coalition experts had been reviewing different code for nearly two months at CMI's headquarters in Owensboro, Kentucky.

If this wasn't absurd enough, our experts also discovered the state had improperly |burned| the source code onto the Intoxilyzers' microprocessors. It appears that in its haste to convict Minnesota drivers, government scientists included unintended machine code on the chips which govern the machines' testing of Minnesota drivers. Our experts now have the added task of determining if and how this unintended code affects the validity, reliability and accuracy of DWI breath tests â?? tests dating all the way back to 2004.

To date, nearly 3,000 DWI breath test cases have been consolidated by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Some expect that number to rise to more than 5,000 cases before the end of the year.

Here is Judge Abrams' Intoxilyzer 5000 DWI Consolidation Order from today.