Earlier this year the Supreme Judicial Court held, in Commonwealth v. Hallinan, that anyone with an OUI conviction on his record could seek a new trial if (1) the Alcotest 9510 breath test was used as evidence and (2) the breath test was administered between June 1, 2011 and April 18, 2019.
The plain language of the Hallinan ruling states:
defendants who pleaded guilty or who were convicted after trial, and the evidence against whom included breath test results from the Alcotest 9510 device from June 1, 2011, through April 18, 2019, are entitled to a conclusive presumption of egregious government misconduct. They may proceed in motions to withdraw their guilty pleas, and motions for new trials, without having to establish egregious government misconduct in each case…and their breath test results are excluded from use at any subsequent trial.
Today the Appeals Court issued a muddled decision that seems contradictory to the straightforward Hallinan ruling.
The defendant, Elvis J. Luckham, pleaded guilty to an OUI charge in 2013. Part of the evidence against Elvis included an Alcotest 9510 breath-test result showing his blood-alcohol-level as over the legal limit.
Based on Hallinan and related cases, Elvis filed a motion seeking a new trial with the breath results excluded.
The motion judge denied Elvis’s request for a new trial, claiming that the original plea was rational at the time and thus could not be rescinded now.
Elvis appealed and the Appeals Court affirmed the judge’s decision. In its opinion, the Appeals Court writes,
the defendant must demonstrate a reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty had he known of [the Office of Alcohol Testing’s} misconduct. Here, the motion judge analyzed the reasonable probability question through the lens of Commonwealth v. Clarke, 460 Mass. 30, 46-47 (2011)…Under Clarke, the motion judge evaluates whether it would have been rational to reject the plea deal under the circumstances.
Both the motion judge and the Appeals Court justices concluded that the plea was rational. According to the justices, there was ample evidence that Elvis was impairment. His eyes were bloodshot. He swayed on his feet while talking to officers. His car was emitting the odor of marijuana. And he drove away from officers in a dazed state during the encounter.
Additionally, the breath test results of .08% BAC–the bare minimum required for “intoxication”—was not a major factor in the prosecution’s case.
Finally, the Appeals Court notes that, unlike Hallinan, Elvis had two lesser charges dropped as part of his 2013 plea agreement.
When all of this is considered, Elvis’s guilty plea was rational and the motion judge had reason to deny it.