State v. Cornelius

The principal issue in these consolidated appeals is whether the defendants’ constitutional rights were violated due to the State’s failure, while administering a breathalyzer test, to take an additional breath sample for their independent testing. We hold that neither the due process nor the equal protection doctrine requires that a defendant be provided with an additional breath sample so that an independent test may be performed by his own experts.

In the first of these cases, the defendant Cornelius was arrested in Epping at approximately 2:45 a.m., on November 16, 1980, and was charged…