Court decision rendered moot by state law

OLYMPIA – The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that breath tests in drunken driving cases aren’t admissible in court if the tests haven’t been properly calibrated.

However, the ruling won’t affect current and future cases. It’s superseded by a new state law that took affect June 10, which says that the question of reliability of breath tests can’t be used as a reason to block their use as evidence in court.

The Supreme Court case was the third major challenge to the reliability of breath tests in recent years. Seeing that such challenges would inevitably continue, the Legislature this year changed the law slightly.

The new law says breath test evidence can’t be totally barred from court just because it might be unreliable. Defendants can still present evidence in court that the test was false or unreliable, and a jury or judge can consider that evidence. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Janea Holmquist, R-Ephrata.

“The June 10 law remedies the problem,” said Walla Walla City Attorney Timothy Donaldson, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court case. Because of the new law, he said, the Supreme Court decision won’t affect any pending or future cases except the three that were specifically named in the ruling.

The Supreme Court ruling was unanimous. Justice Bobbe Bridge, who received deferred prosecution and treatment after a drunken driving arrest last year, recused herself from the case.