New Jersey High Court Upholds Reliability of Alcotest

New Jersey’s Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the breath test used in drunken driving cases.

Wednesday’s order by the court upholds the use of Alcotest, which replaced the Breathalyzer more than a decade ago. The test has been the focus of legal action for the last several years over its reliability.

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week, lawyers for 20 people charged with DWI who challenged the test claimed the state didn’t comply with a 2008 Supreme Court order to revise the software on the machines and to create a searchable database of test results.

In Wednesday’s order, the court ruled the test is scientifically reliable and the database created by the state conformed to the 2008 order.