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Thursday, January 13, 2005

Law - Car's Black Box Evidence Ruled Admissible in New York

"Car's Black Box Evidence Ruled Admissible" is the headline to this story today in the NY Law Journal. Some quotes:

Evidence gleaned from a car's "black box" -- a computer module that, among other things, records a vehicle's speed in the last five seconds before airbags deploy in a collision -- will be admissible in the New York trial of two men charged with second-degree murder.

The defendants, Kyle Soukup and Blake Slade, were involved in a fatal three-car accident while in a race on a Nassau County, N.Y., highway on a night in June 2002, authorities say.

The ruling in People v. Slade, No. 0666-2003, by acting Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Alan M. Honorof followed a hearing testing the science behind the evidence. The decision following the hearing is one of the first of its kind in New York state. * * *

the black box, formally called a sensing diagnostic module, enables the prosecution to establish the Corvette's speed, engine revolutions, throttle position and use of the brakes for the critical moments before the impact.

Police officers removed the sensing module from Soukup's wrecked car after it was in their possession but before they had a search warrant. They later applied for and obtained a warrant based upon witnesses' affidavits and information they had obtained before entering the vehicle.

Soukup's lawyer, Litman, moved to suppress the black box and its data as the products of an unlawful search and seizure. He also challenged the scientific reliability of the data.

The court held a so-called Frye hearing, derived from the 1923 ruling in Frye v. U.S., 293 F. 1013, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Frye provides for a "general acceptance test" of expert testimony, Honorof noted. It dictates that scientific evidence is admissible only if the underlying methodology or scientific principle is sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in its field. * * *

Honorof ruled that the black box data were admissible, even though the police had obtained it before applying for a search warrant. Turning back Litman's argument that his client had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car and its contents, the judge ruled that Soukup's operation of the vehicle on a public highway knowingly exposed his behavior to the public. Observed by at least three witnesses, his velocity was not a private matter, the judge said.

He noted that the police searched not only the engine compartment containing the black box, but also the car's passenger compartment, in which Soukup may have had a reasonable privacy expectation. Nevertheless, the judge found that because the detectives obtained a warrant based not upon information obtained from the car, but from eyewitnesses and observations at the crash scene, the search was covered by the "independent source rule."

That rule preserves the admissibility of otherwise tainted proof if it was "obtained independently from lawful activities untainted by the initial illegality," the judge wrote.

This admissibility question may also come up soon in Indiana. From an AP story published Dec. 23, 2004 in the Indianapolis Star and a number of other papers:
VALPARAISO, Ind. -- What a driver did immediately before his car and another collided was recorded on a "black box" in his vehicle and led to reckless homicide charges against him.

Police said the information they obtained from the car's data recorder, similar to those used on airplanes, conflicted with what the driver told them. Information from the box was supported by witness statements.

Sheryar Qamar, 20, of Michigan City, was charged Tuesday with reckless homicide, criminal recklessness with a vehicle, causing the death of another person while operating a motor vehicle, drunken driving, underage drinking and five other offenses.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 13, 2005 08:23 AM
Posted to General Law Related