SCRAM: What I See...

I have been contacted by a near thirty wearers, one has readily admitted to delinquently obstructing the bracelet---
After reading saran wrap and a trash bag didn't mask a drinking episode, and a read occured on a wearer that worked in an area where alcohol was used to clean circuitry components, obviously it doesn't take much an external contaminent to register. To further explain the sensitivity, the legally accepted partition ratio (parts blood to alcohol) is 2100:1 for a breath test machine, SCRAM is 15,000:1. This ratio is used to establish, as they call it, a reliable estimate of BAC. Since the terms of wearing the bracelet is abstinence, a BAC isn't necessary, and the graph only shows up to .08.
During research, I found that inhaled or dermal exposure to alcohol is metabolized a little different than consumption. That is there is a lack or absence of "first pass" where most consumed alcohol is eliminated, due to type of exposure or type of alcohol. This means the alcohol is directly introduced into the bloodstream, where the greater percentage is carried to the liver to be broke down and elimated, and while I'am convinced EtG is produced in this manner, there is no found research on these types of exposures on either SCRAM or EtG testing. In theory, a machine so sensitive (15,000:1), there may be a possibility a read can occur during the transport and final elimination of vapor or dermal exposure, add the consumption of ripened fruit (can contain up to 4% alcohol) or certain food combinations and "virtuality" becomes more a reality. They claim, "those who have not consumed alcohol do not produce signals that can be interpreted as an alcohol curve." But wait there's more;
PIRE's research showed that "spikey" reads may be from water accumulating in the bracelet, well, alcohol is attracted to water -- that is, it is soluble in water. Water trapped in the bracelet, accumulating in the sensor, ethanol is miscible with water which may explain the retarded diffusion that creates the curve, which adds to my original hypothesis that diffusion is retarded by the alcohol being trapped between the bracelet and skin. Most complaints I have heard of false-positive the reads lasted from 8 to 13 hours, unfortunately the print only reads to .08 which obfuscates the actual high point when proposing allegations against a client. For example, one may have reached a level of .53, then the diffusion started, from .08 to .00 it might resemble a curve, but there is nothing accounting for the period of time not read. A prosecuter can show when the alledged episode started, and blame any lapse in time on continued drinking, showing the end curve as proof of consumption- Maybe this lapse in time accounts for more of the virtual, in virtually no false-positives! Since no corroborating evidence is necessary for conviction, and/or a fictitious plea (the prosecuters favorite weapon) the amount of actual false-positives is unknown.

A peek at what I see:

Case 001: We are in the process of a false reading and are ready to persue all information on this subject. What and how do we obtain any experts in this area to get in contact with? I would appreciate any input as this a very unfortunate way to monitor alcohol related testing. Thank you for any input. We would be interested in hiring any expert to properly communicate on this subject....We have a very good lawyer but this is an interesting case in that my daughter called the scram supervisor and told her she was working as a hair model and she told my daughter to go ahead and get her hair done. The hair show used a product that contained alcohol and it read that she consumed the alcohol as opposed to topical. She has about ten people that will testify at 11 am she was not drinking and that a product was used that contained alcohol. The scram supervisor admits telling my daughter to get hair done. The discrepency is the reading. My daughter will volunteer a lie detector test as well as all of the witnesses who were with her in a professional setting. The reading so far is a low level with a burnout.

During the hearing.......

The doctor testified and explained all of the variables here.The city atty said it was possible our dughter drank for 13 hours a liittle bit at a time.
....Sound like an alcoholic??

After a long battle............

I can finally send this e-mail to you with good news.NOT GUILTY was the verdict after this long haul. The hearing was so amazing! The woman from scram was on the stand for a very long time and she made the most unbelievable statements. First of all she agreed that she really did not understand how to tell any difference between drinking alcohol or the absorbtion of it. Secondly she made the statemaent that there is no training or scientific evidence to train them, other than putting the bracelet on and waiting for the graph to sound an alarm if there is a reading. Lastly she said she remembers talking to our daughter and it "sounds like something i would say" (refering to getting her done). The prosecuter came up to our daughter after the verdict and said"the right decision was made, I could not have slept thinking you might go to jail" She then gave her a hug. What a crock if they think this is B.S. then why do they continue to use it?
Case 002: I was falsely accused of drinking and I expect I probably will be accused again. I was at work all day the day they said I was drinking all day. I took proof of this to my P.O, who told me "dont let it happen again". I have no idea how to not let it happen again, I look at the ingredients on the products I buy for my hair, skin, ect. and have not drank a drop. Isnt there a some way to insist that we are notified in a timely manner so that we may take a BAC to PROVE innocence? I am already developing a big abrasion, and I've only had this on for two months, which I think is a health issue....
Case 007
...Her charges aren't alcohol related, but as part of the program they are required to wear the SCRAM monitor. The ankle monitor she was wearing broke off and they charged her with criminal damage of $1400, which is a felony. She was at work at the time and had numerous witnesses who saw that it broke, that she didn't take it off. My husband, who is an engineer, saw the strap and wasn't too worried about it because in his opinion there was no way they could say it had been tampered with because it broke at the clasp....
Case 003: I have been placed on an Intermediate Punishment Program in _____----., and have had a great deal of respect for Judge Michael Barrase's effort to bring Recovery into the legal arena until recently. I was apprehended and returned to Lackawanna County Prison when my bracelet registered a positive reading for alcohol. I have been clean and sober for 9 mos., and can only attribute this reading to my use of cleaning products. I spent about 30 days in jail before I came to the realization that my P.O. as well as the judge were also victims of the claims from AMS and decided my only chance of getting out would be to admit to drinking even though i had not, as the system had relayed a message to my father that they were not trying to punish me they wanted to help me, but were waiting for me to get honest....
Otherwords, Those protecting a multi-million dollar investment wouldn't lie, nor the person who admits to drinking to opt out of jail.

No telling who lied, for I know and have reasonable doubt. Should their children lie, for millions or liberty, what's worth more???


Thanks to developmental support the National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), there has been
more published research about the WrisTAS device than the
SCRAM Bracelet...Because AMS is privately funded, most of SCRAM’s
research to-date has been unpublished....

LAW: The Surrogate Prosecuter

The fallibilities of alcohol detecting devices or any admittable scientific evidence is not limited to the device itself. Expert testimony is usually paid for, and as recently exposed, the questions can be prepared before there is even a case. This testimony will either protect an investment or defendant, and when asked a question one doesn't want the information released, they can just testify ignorant,"not that I know of". An investigation by the Mercury News for an article showed how judges are acting as a second prosecuter in a fourth of jury trials in Santa Clara County.

Judge Edward Lee is a former police officer who went to law school and served as a deputy district attorney before becoming a judge in 1991. Attorney Elissa Eckman said of the trial of Carlos Guerrero. ``It was like having two prosecutors in the room giving closing arguments. Only, one of them was the judge.'' Lee apparently questioned a witness, then later gave a closing analysis of his own to the jury, on issues raised during his questioning. The victim in this case, nowhere to be found, so an officer quoted the victim as accusing Guerrero, the two other gang members with Guerrero that night testified that not to be true. The judge relentlessly tried to discredit the gang members testimony calling them convicted felons and naming one a convicted perjurer. The jury was still deadlocked, but how would this case have turned out without the second prosecuter, a fair trial by a jury of peers..........Eckman later challenged Lee's conduct in the case, contending he demonstrated bias.
Then, two years later, attorney Thomas Orvis sought to have Lee disqualified in a case by arguing that the judge had established a pattern of bias in other cases including Guerrero's. Lee, he said, ``has a habit and custom of acting as a surrogate district attorney.'' While veteran judges cited concerns that this behavior invites trouble, the judge remains behind the bench, and he said, in recent years he has not offered jurors his own summation, nor has he engaged in questioning witnesses.
What was found:
• Jury instructions. In 48 cases, judges failed to give the jury appropriate guidance on the law -- in ways that either bolstered the prosecution's view of the case or undermined the defense's contentions. As he directed jurors in a gang slaying case, a judge refused to tell them they should convict the defendant of manslaughter, not murder, if they found he acted ``in the heat of passion'' when he opened fire on rival gang members an hour after someone shot his brother.

• Judicial partisanship. In 10 cases, including Guerrero's, judges made explicit remarks or took actions in the presence of the jury that suggested their bias against the defendant.
... The Mercury News identified more than 100 instances when the appellate courts found that trial judges erred in ways that helped prosecutors, and more than 40 additional instances of troubling conduct that the appellate courts declined to assess...

...More than a third of the county's 79 judges spent the bulk of their careers in the district attorney's office, .......

...the election that ousted California Chief Justice Rose Bird and two associate justices remains a powerful reminder of the risks of being perceived as lenient on crime, at the trial as well as appellate levels...

Handling evidence• Judges often keep the defense in the dark
Judges play crucial roles throughout a case. They decide, initially, whether the case is sufficient for the defendant to stand trial. They instruct the jurors, in the end, on the law to be applied in the case, and then impose the sentence.
But no role is more crucial than the judges' handling of issues of evidence. They determine what evidence can be admitted, and what evidence should be excluded. And they preside over decisions on what evidence the defense can see through the discovery process. Those decisions are especially important when it comes to gang and juvenile cases, where the law limits defense access and the judge must decide whether to grant it.
Often in such cases, defense attorneys are left wondering whether evidence they could not see would have helped them...

What to admit?• Rulings often tilted toward prosecution
While disputes over access to evidence recur, a far more common issue involves the admission of evidence: what should be included at trial, what should be excluded -- and why. Of the more than 200 instances of questionable judicial acts tallied by the Mercury News, nearly half involved decisions on the admission of evidence.
As judges consider those decisions, there are many rules to guide them. State statute and court precedent regulate the admission of everything from statements taken outside the courtroom to such prejudicial evidence as a defendant's criminal record. The U.S. Constitution guarantees a defendant's right to present evidence that may raise doubts about guilt.
Still, trial judges have significant discretion to admit or exclude evidence based on their own assessment of its value. And in general, the appellate courts are loath to second-guess those decisions.

Instructing jurors• In key phase, mistakes may lead to convictions
The last thing that jurors hear before their deliberations are the judge's instructions on how to apply the law to the case. These instructions, while sometimes technical in nature, are often vital in determining whether the defendant is convicted, and for what crime.
The process is highly regimented. California has adopted a series of standard jury instructions to cover the gamut of crimes. At the close of a case, the judge decides which instructions apply, after both the prosecutor and defense attorney advocate for the instructions they favor.
But repeatedly, the Mercury News review showed, judges err in this phase of the trial. At times the appellate court found that judges mistakenly rejected defense requests for instructions; at other times the court concluded that judges failed to give instructions that are mandatory, even without a defense request. And at times the appellate court found that judges wrongly modified the standard instructions in ways that misstated the law.
In one case in which the jury was supposed to determine whether a defendant was guilty of either robbery or petty theft, Judge Rene Navarro's misleading instructions led the defendant to be convicted of both crimes for the same incident.

In the world of wellness courts, a defendant should consider themself fortunate to see a jury, possibly another Constitutional issue with continuous monitoring, for challenging the science would be as simple as bringing the contract up in testimony. And to turn reasonable doubt into doubt, simply expose the bias research and/or controls, the magnitude of unpublished research, and lack of research on the theory of ones defense to contradict the "not that I know of" testimony.

Lawrence Taylor writes," Note the comment about "lackluster defense attorneys", although I suspect a better characterization would be "beaten-down defense attorneys". Generally viewed by today's American public as obstructionists, the simple fact is that there is only one thing standing between the combined power of police, prosecutors and judges and a corrupt criminal justice system. Neutralize that individual, as has been done here, and truth, justice and the Constitution become little more than fine-sounding memories."

LAW: The Plea Bargain

When facing a charge from infallible science, the defendant may become overwhemled and concerned more so for liberty than proving innocents. As a recent post showed, a teenager was facing an indictment for the murder of his sister, and confessed, due to the infallible "Voice Stress Analyzer". It was his belief that maybe he couldn't remember, and even told the story, then a more valid science pointed to the guilty transient, and the inventor of the "Voice Stress Analyzer" couldn't even muster an apology.
In the wonderful world of court imposed treatment, the consequences are not nearly as severe, and the alternative, allthough regressive, the better option.
A recent article by Radley Balko elaborates:

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette takes a fair look at plea bargaining, and entertains the possibility that the system has evolved to the point where prosecutors intentionally over-charge, and defendants are effectively punished for exercising their constitutional right to a trial.

Nationally, for fiscal year 2004, 95.5 percent of the 51,666 convictions were reached through guilty pleas. That means that only 2,316 U.S. District Court cases across the country went to trial.

In the Western District of Pennsylvania, the percentage was just a bit lower. Of the 261 convictions that year, 94.3 percent were reached through pleas.

Mr. Kramer, who now teaches at Penn State University, believes the American court system has been acclimated to processing guilty pleas.
"We've created a barrier to any potential increase in jury trials," he said. "If all of a sudden we had a 20 percent increase, it would be tremendously burdensome on the court system to accommodate those."
[...]
"It's a perfectly laughable system," he said. "The prosecutors love it. The message is any sane defendant, guilty or innocent, ought to do the prosecutor's bidding."

Not surprisingly, the money quote comes from our old friend, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan:
"Of course it leads to disparity and different sentences," said Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. "But it's supposed to. It's designed to give a reduction to those who readily take responsibility and admit their conduct."

Or those who've done nothing wrong, but are scared to death of the excessively long sentences that could await them at trial thank to prosecutors who pile on charges to extract a plea.
Cato's Tim Lynch looks at how the plea bargain has devolved into a prosecutorial weapon here.

A weapon, loaded with unfounded science and pointed at anyone accused. While a research on EtG testing states,"This subject also presented one of the positive EtG results (0.60 mg/l) during the placebo period, the origin of which is unknown.", then procedes to cite," However, it should always be considered that self-reports of alcohol consumption may have low accuracy.", that is an understatement. I'am convinced that there are more of the admitted drinkers, than there are actual drinkers when it comes to continuous monitoring.
Dr. Skipper-The people that we confront who have a positive and it seems like it has to do with how confident you are that it's actually positive, but when you press them and say it's in your urine, we're fairly confident that you drank, it seems to very commonly elicit admission of drinking...............Using the loaded weapon, and the client if court ordered, will have an extended screening period ($)................now that's why I just call it TREATMENT. They propagate the EtG test with finding surreptitious drinkers, so any false-positive can be identified!