State police lab long knew of breath test problems

[unhappycamper]

http://www.wickedlocal.com/article/20150808/NEWS/150807163



Hingham Police Sgt. Steven Dearth demonstrates the use of a portable breath test.

State police lab long knew of breath test problems
By Jim Haddadin/Daily News Staff
Posted Aug. 8, 2015 at 11:17 PM
Updated at 11:22 PM

FRAMINGHAM – Staff at the state police laboratory that certifies breath testing machines used around Massachusetts appear to have known for months about a software issue that complicated dozens of drunken driving cases, long before they moved to fix it earlier this year.

Emails obtained by the Daily News show that as early as February 2014, experts at the state’s Office of Alcohol Testing (OAT) recognized breath testing machines were failing to properly detect errors during calibration tests.

While these experts warned some local police departments to give calibration tests extra scrutiny, it was not until April 2015 — when OAT faced pressure from prosecutors to address the problem — that the secretary of public safety asked the manufacturer to come up with a solution.

Public safety officials maintain police should have caught the errors, preventing breath test evidence from becoming tainted.