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SANFORD - Hundreds of cases involving breath-alcohol tests have been thro wn out by Seminole County judges in the past five months because the tes t's manufacturer will not disclose how the machines work. All four of Seminole County's criminal judges have been using a standard that if a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how th e machine works - its software source code, for instance - and the state cannot provide it, the breath test is rejected, the Orlando Sentinel re ported Wednesday. Prosecutors have said they do not know how many drunken drivers have been acquitted as a result. But Gino Feliciani, the misdemeanor division chi ef in the Seminole County State Attorney's Office, said the conviction r ate has dropped to 50 percent or less. Seminole judges have been following the lead of county Judge Donald Marbl estone, who in January ruled that although the information may be a trad e secret and controlled by a private contractor, defendants are entitled to it. Florida cannot contract away the statutory rights of its citizens,'' th e judge wrote. Judges in other counties have said the opposite: The state cannot turn ov er something it does not possess, and the manufacturer should not have t o turn over trade secrets.
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