Montana- A Billings police officer charged with DUI, attacks breath tests and gains a mistrial.

HELENA — A Billings police officer on trial in Helena for driving with an elevated alcohol level attacked the breath-testing technology used by the state, and emerged without a conviction on the charge after her trial ended Friday with a hung jury.

The four-man, two-woman jury convicted Samantha Puckett of speeding but failed to reach agreement on the DUI per se charge. Municipal Judge Bob Wood declared a mistrial and Deputy City Attorney Thomas Jodoin said it was too early to decide whether the city would retry the case.

Puckett’s attorney, Bradley Finn, said Puckett has been working at her job as a police officer since a brief period of administrative leave after her arrest in the early hours of Dec. 10.

Billings Police officials did not return calls inquiring about Puckett’s employment status, and a person at the city’s Human Resources Department said that department would not comment.

Helena police say they measured Samantha Puckett’s breath-alcohol content above .10 percent that night, exceeding the legal limit for driving of .08 percent.

But Paul Miranda, an expert witness for Puckett, testified that the analysis could be flawed.

Miranda, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Montana and works as a senior metallurgist for Idaho-based Thompson Creek Mining Co., has had some training related to breath-testing and has previously testified as an expert witness about eight or 10 times, he said.

He argued that the test results could vary due to elevation, the body temperature of the person blowing, and other factors. Based on those variables, and after viewing police video of Puckett performing well in two of the three field sobriety tests, Miranda said he believed Puckett was below the legal maximum.


Link:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_897c390b-334f-5a93-bc9c-cf8ae948f016.html