Taimoor Rana is seasoned criminal defense attorney specializing in DUI related cases. He shares his expert legal opinion here « Over 1,000 Houston DWI Convictions Invalid
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- A contractor has been found guilty of faking breath machine tests, which has led to approximately 1,200 DWI convictions in Harris County to be thrown out.
It is important to inspect breath testing devices regularly to check whether they are performing correctly or not. This job is given out as contracts by the Department of Public Safety, and in this case, it was given to the wrong person.
Deetrice Wallace admitted to investigators that she had falsely inspected machines used by the South Houston and Clute police departments.
Eventually, Wallace had to face criminal charges of tampering with government records. She was sentenced to a year in jail. This also led to around 1,000 defendants to be eligible for retrials. Some defendants had more than one case due to false testing. But the prosecutors don’t seem optimistic about the retrials, as the breath tests cannot be taken again and other evidence has also been destroyed.
In order to see if the person would like to seek a retrial, the attorney for each of the defendant’s cases will be contacted. The case will start completely fresh in court. However, this may lead to some of the cases turning highly controversial, especially one felony case that resulted in a 60-year prison sentence.
Wallace successfully tampered with machines to fake the tests. And due to this tampering, she did not incur the normal expenses and pocketed nearly $150,000 in result of the scheme.
Wallace signed the contract with the Department of Public Safety for six years prior to her arrest in 2008. She serviced machines used by at least 7 Houston-area police departments.
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