By Bryan Miller
WOODLAND, CA – The accused in a hearing here this week in Yolo County Superior Court was denied the opportunity to use a program known as BAC Track to replace what Deputy Public Defender Courtney Leavitt alleged is the faulty TAC tracker known as SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring) that is commonly used by Yolo County Probation.
During a case for a violation of probation because the accused consumed alcohol, the accused was said to have a 0.002 blood alcohol level, according to the TAC level produced by SCRAM Systems that the company claims detects alcohol as it leaves the skin in the form of a gas.
DPD Leavitt argued the BAC Track program, which the accused used on their own, uses the typical breathalyzer technique and showed that the accused registered a 0 on their hourly check at the time in which the SCRAM device detected that she had consumed alcohol.
DPD Leavitt said the program the accused was using to monitor her alcohol consumption was based out of San Francisco County and that “it sounds like they may use it in their court system there.”
Leavitt also stated that when an individual uses the breathalyzer for the program that it takes a video of them as evidence that they are the individual taking the test.
Deputy District Attorney Martha Wais argued there is no way to prove that the BAC level of 0 was produced by the accused because the video evidence was on her phone, which was currently in possession of the jail.
DDA Wais added the BAC Track program should not be allowed during the accused’s supervised own recognition release because the District Attorney’s office does not have a good knowledge of it and how it works. DDA Wais did not show any intention of looking into the program to allow the accused to use it.
The representative from Yolo County Probation, noting the accused should not be placed back on supervised release, said that if the accused were to remain on SOR and placed back on the SCRAM device that they wanted the accused to pay for the service themselves because they were able to pay for BAC Track program.
DPD Leavitt responded to the request of the probation’s office stating that while the accused was able to afford to pay for BAC Track on their own, it is “less than what a SCRAM cost out of pocket.”
She also said that she would be willing to work with probation to “get more information to probation” on how the BAC Track program works in order to allow the accused to use it rather than the SCRAM system, which the defense said was showing false positives.
Judge Catherine Hohenwarter ruled the accused would go back on SOR, but disallowed the accused to use BAC Track rather than SCRAM, stating, “I’m going to keep you on SCRAM since I don’t know anything about this track thing.” She added the matter could possibly be revisited at a later date.
