A day after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) ordered law enforcement statewide to inspect and halt the use of DataMaster (DMT) alcohol breath testing instruments that have been linked to data entry errors, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS is digging into your rights to challenge potentially faulty tests.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS was the first to talk to attorney Chuck Ramsay after he discovered a maintenance issue related to these alcohol breath testing machines. Weeks later, the number of DWI cases that the BCA says could be impacted has grown to 146, spanning at least five counties.
We asked Ramsay on Saturday, “If you were administered an improper test or believe the test results were inaccurate, is there a system in Minnesota to challenge that?”
“Yes and no,” Ramsay said.
There is no procedure in Minnesota to request a retest or an analysis of the instrument used in your case by law enforcement, he said.
Minnesotans do have the right to challenge the use of a breath test as evidence in a criminal case, though.
“We do in every case,” Ramsay said. “We get all the maintenance and calibration usage reports, we get volumes of information for every test, and we can go back and recreate the test.”
However, even if charges are dropped or a conviction overturned, there’s a separate process to get your license back, and state law says you have to file that legal challenge within 60 days of a notice and order of revocation, he explained.
“If your license is revoked as a result of one of these faulty tests, you must file, essentially, a lawsuit within 60 days, or you lose that right forever to challenge that test,” Ramsay said.
“And so you asked specifically about what changes I think should be made. I think the legislature should do away with that 60-day limitation, because this kind of thing happens, unfortunately, more often than many people are aware of. We learn of bad tests long after the 60 days have expired.”
Ramsey added that the loss of a license and/or the public record associated with a revocation can be “devastating.”
“For most people who have never encountered this before, and they don’t need their driver’s license for work or for their family, they lose their license for 90 days, and it’s not that big of a deal. But for many people who drive for a living, particularly commercial truck drivers, if they get a DWI, that’s their livelihood, and they lose their job, and maybe their career is over. It can devastate families,” he said.
