United States District Judge Dennis Powers finds Scram of California and Alcohol Monitoring Systems Unreliable

Judge Dennis Powers of the Novi District Court in Michigan found that an alcohol monitoring device frequently used in drunk driving cases to compel sobriety lacked scientific reliability, according to Patrick Barone of Birmingham Michigan, the defense attorney who successfully argued the case. The new device being examined by the Court, commonly referred to as a SCRAM Device, is an ankle bracelet worn by drunk drivers who are on bond to continuously monitor alcohol use. It has been recently used in 23 states for drunk driving cases. According to Barone, the unreliable device has caused many people to be mistakenly taken back into custody based upon flawed readings.The ruling, which is considered the country to thoroughly examine the reliability of the device, came after two days of testimony from Jeffrey Hawthorn, the patent holder, and Dr. Michael Hlastala a nationally known physiologist from the University of Washington. The SCRAM device's reliability was called into question after the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office sought to revoke the bond of defendant Lisa Glaza, who has been charged with drunk driving causing death, and as part of her bond conditions was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet manufactured by Alcohol Monitoring Systems called a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor, or SCRAM bracelet. The prosecution claimed that Ms. Glaza had consumed alcohol over a two day period while on bond, based solely on the SCRAM results. Because Ms. Glaza denied drinking, Southfield attorney Mark Satawa had Ms. Glaza take a polygraph examination, which she passed. Mr. Jeffery Hawthorn asserted that his company's SCRAM bracelet has never had a false positive. Mr. Hawthorn explained that the bracelet measures the amount of alcohol in the wearer's body by measuring perspiration. The science of measuring alcohol in this way has been around since the 1930's, but his product has been on the market for only about one year. Mr. Hawthorn claimed that the readings from Ms. Glaza's bracelet clearly showed not only a pattern associated with a drinking episode, but also that she had attempted to block or tamper with the device during this same time period. Dr. Michael Hlastala told the Judge that the readings from the device looked more like instrument drift than drinking. "The numbers just don't add up", stated Hlastala. "It is biologically impossible for the metabolism of alcohol to have produced the readings Ms. Glaza's bracelet did in this case". Dr. Hlastala also offered other causes for the SCRAM readings, such as food converting to alcohol inside the body, and that the SCRAM device uses alcohol measuring technology that has been shown to be non-specific for beverage alcohol. "Consequently, certain kinds of cosmetics and other things can trigger a positive reading. Looking just at the numbers it's impossible to know if they are from drinking or if the numbers mean something else", stated Hlastala. Mr. Barone stated that this SCRAM bracelet has probably never been subjected to this kind of scrutiny in Court. "Unfortunately, there are at least several hundred people in Michigan alone that a face loss of liberty after being falsely accused of drinking while on bond", states Mr. Barone. "Until the SCRAM bracelet has been properly studied by the scientific community it simply shouldn't be used. The Courts have really jumped the gun on this." Mr. Barone believes that Judge Power's ruling will cause government agencies throughout the country to re-think their use of the SCRAM bracelet, until its reliability can be accepted in the scientific community.