People v. Buell
Annotate this CaseBuell pled guilty to felony driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent or higher (Vehicle Code 23152(b)), and admitted three prior DUI convictions. The court imposed a sentence of 10 months in custody plus six months suspended. Buell’s mandatory supervision required that he consume no alcohol. The Probation Department enrolled him in its Continuous Alcohol Monitoring Program, requiring Buell to wear an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet monitored by AMS, a private company. The probation officer petitioned to revoke supervision on the ground that Buell's monitor indicated he had consumed alcohol less than three weeks into his supervision. The prosecution’s only witness was Mays, the Department’s case manager; it introduced AMS’s noncompliance report for Buell. On cross-examination, Mays was shown a report reflecting the same measurements as that report, but over a longer time frame. Asked whether the spikes indicated alcohol consumption, Mays testified that she could not “answer that definitively” and could “only testify to what AMS has confirmed.” When asked how AMS analyzes the data, Mays answered: “However they do it on their equipment. I don’t know the science.” The court terminated Buell’s mandatory supervision. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting claims of insufficient evidence and that counsel was ineffective in failing to object to May’s testimony and the AMS report. Buell did not establish a reasonable probability that an objection would have resulted in a different outcome.
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