Commonwealth v. Sloan

607 A.2d 285, 414 Pa. Super. 400, 1992 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1254
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 22, 1992
Docket622
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 607 A.2d 285 (Commonwealth v. Sloan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Sloan, 607 A.2d 285, 414 Pa. Super. 400, 1992 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1254 (Pa. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

FORD ELLIOTT, Judge:

Oscar Dale Sloan appeals from the judgment of sentence entered following a conviction by a jury of violating 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 8731(a)(4) 1 of the Vehicle Code (driving under the influence of alcohol). Appellant’s post-trial motions were denied, and he was sentenced to a term of 30 days to 1 year in the Jefferson County Jail and to pay a $510.00 fine. We reverse.

On May 27, 1989, Officer Perry Ames of the Brookville Police Department arrested appellant for driving under the influence of alcohol. Using the Intoxilyzer 4011 (AS), Officer Bickle performed a breath test on appellant to determine his blood alcohol level. At the trial, the Commonwealth presented a Certificate of Breath Testing Device Calibration dated December 21, 1988 and a Certificate of *403 Breath Testing Device Accuracy dated May 4, 1989. Appellant’s test revealed a .158% blood alcohol level.

To counter the Commonwealth’s evidence on the accuracy of the blood alcohol reading, the defense presented expert testimony. Walter Frajola, Ph.D., testified that the Intoxilyzer is programmed to make several assumptions about the person being tested. The Intoxilyzer assumes that the person being tested is in the post-absorptive phase of alcohol metabolism because that is when the test is supposed to be administered. If the machine is not administered in the post-absorptive phase, the range of error will be anywhere from a low of thirty percent but as high as two hundred and thirty percent.

Dr. Frajola also testified that the Intoxilyzer was subject to at least fifty percent error when used to measure the blood alcohol level in the post-absorptive phase. Dr. Frajola opined to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that appellant was in the pre-absorptive or absorptive stage of alcohol metabolism meaning that the range of error during his test was anywhere from thirty to two-hundred and thirty percent. According to the doctor, in the scientific community, the Intoxilyzer 4011 (AS) is not accurate in the pre-absorption phase. The Intoxilyzer’s programming assumes, for everyone, that there is twenty-one hundred times as much alcohol in your blood as there is in your breath; the machine measures the amount of alcohol in your breath and electronically converts it to what it believes would be a person’s blood alcohol by multiplying by twenty-one hundred. However, in the general population, the ratio of alcohol in the breath to alcohol in the blood can vary from a low of eleven hundred and forty-two to one to a high of thirty-four hundred and eighty seven to one.

The doctor further testified that the Intoxilyzer also assumes that everyone tested has a body temperature of 37 degrees Centigrade although variations of two degrees Centigrade are recognized for the human body. Where the machine assumes that the body is a certain temperature and there is a two degree Centigrade difference, the results *404 produced by the machine would display an eighteen percent or more error. The machine also assumes that everyone tested has the same concentration of solids or particles in the blood. The percentage of particulates in a blood sample determines how fast the alcohol will leave the blood and go into the lungs. If a person has few solids and few cells, more liquid is present; therefore, the alcohol will be dissolved in a larger liquid and be more dilute when it is exposed to the air of the lungs and will go into the lungs slowly. If a person has a large number of red cells, a large number of hemoglobin and a high particulate, then the alcohol has less liquid to move around in; therefore, it will escape into the air of the lungs faster. This assumption accounts for approximately a minus two percent to a plus five percent error in the test results. Dr. Frajola stated that the same individuals with the same amount- of alcohol in their blood, but differing amounts of red cells will provide various blood alcohol results.

The following are the three issues raised in this appeal:

1. Whether the trial court denied appellant a fair trial by, in essence, directing a verdict of guilty because the trial court charged the jury to presume that the breath test result (.158) was accurate, in spite of defense counsel’s brief to the contrary and evidence to the contrary?
2. Whether the trial court denied appellant a fair trial by refusing to charge the jury that they did not need to presume that the test results were accurate?
3. Whether the determination of guilt or innocence in prosecutions for violations of 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3731 should be effectively transferred from the jury to the intoxilyzer machine and intoxilyzer operator by virtue of an instruction to the jury that 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1547(C)(1) Certificates of calibration and accuracy created a presumption of the accuracy of the blood alcohol level determination of the intoxilyzer without a cautionary instruction by the trial court of the jury’s right to determine that intoxilyzer findings in a *405 particular instance are inaccurate consistent with the applicable case law, Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States?

The aforementioned issues raised by appellant are interrelated and shall be discussed simultaneously.

“In evaluating a jury charge for prejudicial and reversible error, the charge must be construed as a whole. ‘Error cannot be predicated on isolated excerpts of the charge. It is the general effect of the charge that controls.’ ” Commonwealth v. Hess, 349 Pa.Super. 440, 503 A.2d 448, 449 (1986).

Defense counsel objected to the following instruction given by the trial court:

I would further instruct you that in this case the Commonwealth has introduced into evidence a Certificate of Calibration, as to the Intoxilyzer equipment used in this case, and that the defendant’s blood — that tested the defendant’s blood alcohol content, and has also introduced into evidence Certificates of Accuracy as to the Intoxilyzer. These Certificates of Accuracy shall be presumed as presumptive evidence of the accuracy of the breath test results.

Trial transcript, 9/20/90 at 241.

Appellant argues that the trial court improperly instructed the jury that the certificate of calibration and the certificate of accuracy constituted presumptive evidence of the accuracy of the breath test results, and the court also refused to qualify this charge with respect to the Intoxilyzer results by explaining to the jury its right to make a finding of fact contrary to the Intoxilyzer results. Appellant maintains that the court in effect advised the jury that the introduction of the certificates of accuracy and calibration required the jury to accept as accurate the blood alcohol level measurement of the Intoxilyzer as a matter of law.

*406 The Pennsylvania legislature has established by statute the requirements for the admissibility of chemical tests taken to determine blood alcohol content.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
607 A.2d 285, 414 Pa. Super. 400, 1992 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-sloan-pasuperct-1992.