Citation

Hall G. Collision 2010; 5(1): 44-49.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Collision Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In a recent court case involving an August 2006 fatal two-vehicle accident in Oklahoma, the court sustained the defense motion to suppress evidence obtained from the crash data retrieval (CDR) software from one of the vehicles involved in the accident. This article examines the case and the reason for the evidence suppression. The accident occurred when the driver of a pickup crossed the center line and collided with a passenger sedan. The driver of the sedan was killed and the pickup driver was charged with manslaughter. Data from the pickup truck’s sensing and diagnostic module was downloaded by law enforcement using CDR software. The downloaded file was kept on the officer’s field computer and a paper copied was printed out. Unfortunately, the original downloaded CDR file was lost. The truck driver’s defense team moved to suppress the CDR evidence. Between the time of the download until the hearing, the CDR software had advanced by five versions. The defense argued that it needed the downloaded file in order to examine it using the latest version of the software. It also argued that the printed copy should be suppressed because the software advances could yield a different report. The court sustained the defense motion to suppress the CDR report. This case study highlights the importance of properly preserving CDR computer files.