Posted on Tue, Aug. 22, 2006

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S.C. SUPREME COURT

Justices rule against SLED

Records on breath machines for DUI cases inadequate, high court says

By RICK BRUNDRETT

rbrundrett@thestate.com

The State Law Enforcement Division has violated state law by not keeping detailed maintenance records on breath machines used to test drunken-driving suspects, the S.C. Supreme Court said Monday.

But the unanimous ruling in the Richland County case doesn’t guarantee that charges will be dropped in thousands of pending DUI cases statewide, some defense lawyers say.

The justices said defendants still have to show some evidence there were problems with the machines when they were given breath tests.

“I don’t think it’s a blanket ruling to throw out any breath test results in South Carolina,” said longtime Anderson defense lawyer Ronnie Cole, who was not involved in the Richland County case.

Maintenance records are important, defense lawyers say, because machines that routinely malfunction or are poorly maintained can give false blood-alcohol readings. State law says anyone with a blood-alcohol percentage of .08 or higher is intoxicated.

SLED spokeswoman Bobbi Schlatterer declined comment Monday, saying the case still was “under judiciary review.”

Under a 2001 state law, SLED is responsible for keeping detailed maintenance records on its approximately 160 DataMaster machines statewide, the court’s ruling said. Cole said about 13,500 breath tests were given at jails and police departments last year.

SLED posts maintenance records on each machine online. But defense lawyers say the records are not detailed and do not reflect all potential problems with the machines.

In its ruling Monday, the five-member Supreme Court ordered a new lower court hearing for Ronald Landon, who pleaded not guilty after being charged with second-offense DUI.

The Columbia man was arrested after a rear-end collision at about 8:30 a.m. Dec. 22, 2002, on Hard Scrabble Road. When arrested, Landon smelled of alcohol and appeared to have red eyes and a pale face, the state Highway Patrol said.

Landon registered a blood-alcohol content of .14 percent after blowing into a DataMaster machine at the Richland County jail, court records said. The legal standard for drunken driving at the time was .10 percent or higher.

The machine automatically shut itself down five times in 2002, including twice on Dec. 30, 2002 — eight days after Landon’s arrest, SLED records show.

After a pretrial ruling, Circuit Judge G. Thomas Cooper reversed himself and threw out Landon’s blood-alcohol results. He said state law was violated partly because the jail didn’t keep maintenance records on the machine Landon used.

The 2001 law said both SLED and the local agency are required to keep detailed records. But the Supreme Court ruled Monday that the requirement was met at the jail in Landon’s case because it had access to SLED records online.

The justices said the prosecutors in Landon’s case must prove the machine was operating properly.

“It’s not about whether guilty people are getting off,” said Joe McCulloch of Columbia, one of Landon’s lawyers. “It is really about fairness.”

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.