No, it wasn’t impossible, but it was expensive.
Until an Ohio Supreme Court ruling forced their hand, Ohio Department of Health officials insisted it would be a near-technological and financial impossibility to turn over previous results from alcohol-breath-testing machines.
But, once the court ordered previous test results from Intoxilyzer 8000s turned over to lawyers representing DUI suspects, to potentially allow them to challenge the accuracy of their clients’ tests, health officials finally found a way.
Agency IT employees put together a system to export historical data from its DUI testing database in about a month, according to documents.
The estimated price: $144,000 in upfront costs, with continuing annual costs placed at $124,000 a year, Dispatch Reporter Randy Ludlow notes.
DUI-specialty lawyers long contended that state officials refused to turn over data because they feared it would prove the Intoxilyzer 8000 breath testers they deployed to police — with the notable exception of Franklin County — are largely inaccurate.
