MANATEE -- There is a report of her driving erratically.
And a breath-test shows her blood-alcohol content was over the legal limit, but Janet Landrum won’t go to trial for her 11th DUI arrest.
In an action that could have far-reaching impact on the state’s DUI docket, the State Attorney’s Office has dropped the case after a judge ordered it to produce a source code for a breath-test machine that the defense wanted to examine for software malfunctions.
Without the code, the judge would’ve granted the defense its motion to have the breath-test results dismissed from evidence.
The state attorney’s office decided not to push for the code. It already had asked the company that produces the CMI Intoxilyzer 8000 in the past, and had been denied.
“We’re not willing to go to trial on the DUI without all the evidence,” said Brian A. Iten, assistant state attorney and felony division chief.
“Our office has asked CMI to produce the source code and they haven’t honored our requests,” Iten said, referring to prior cases. “We have asked (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement) to intervene on our behalf, to see if they could persuade CMI for those source codes, and that effort has failed.”
He said judges have demanded CMI turn over the source code, to no avail.
Tampa attorney Jason Sammis said the Landrum decision could be used as leverage to get access to the source code in other cases.
“I believe the source code is something we should all have access to,” Sammis said. “It’s necessary to determine whether the Intoxilyzer 8000 machines are functioning accurately and giving accurate results. That’s necessary because people’s innocence or guilt can often swing on weather a breathe-test result is accurate.”
Iten’s view differs.
“Other judges may find it to be persuasive, but under the law it is not precedent,” Iten said. “The judge’s ruling doesn’t bind other judges,” because Brownell wasn’t acting in appellate capabilities.
The issue of the source code in the Landrum case was first brought before Judge Diana Moreland in 2009. She denied the defense’s motion to not allow the breath-test results to be entered into court. Judge Scott Brownell then ruled differently on a similar motion.
The State Attorney’s Office also decided not to appeal because it “would delay the case another year or more,” Iten said, plus she is already serving time on the another charge.
Landrum, 44, is serving a four-year sentence for driving with a permanently revoked license and will be on probation for a year after her release.
In Landrum’s case, the breath-test wasn’t the only evidence that showed her being intoxicated, documents show.
When she was pulled over in the 2600 block of Cortez Road on Aug. 23, 2008, a deputy saw her vehicle weaving back and forth, and breaking several times even though there were no other cars on the road, according to an arrest report.
Landrum made no attempt to locate her driver license and she asked the deputy not to put her back into the system, the report stated.
She told deputies she had not been drinking, the report said, but she later failed a field sobriety test.
Her passenger said he didn’t drive because he was drunk and didn’t want to “chance getting a DUI.”
After she was arrested, Landrum told deputies she should not have been driving and probably would have stayed home if she could turn back the clock, the report said.
Three breath-tests were taken from Landrum. The first attempt failed to register, the second was .112 and third .108, court papers state. The legal limit in Florida is .08.
From 1988 to 2008, Landrum has been arrested for DUI in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
