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Drunken-driving defendant wants police DUI files unsealed
Wednesday, September 20, 2000 By Jim McKinnon, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Common Pleas Judge John A. Zottola will rule tomorrow whether a defense attorney can have information from the sealed files of men who were convicted of drunken driving so that another man can use the information in his own defense.
Matthew F. O'Reilly, 46, of Valencia, wants to use the information to show that police in McKees Rocks doctored documents in numerous drunken-driving cases to cover up discrepancies in readings they got with field equipment.
O'Reilly was stopped Nov. 3, 1999, by McKees Rock police. Officers ordered him to breathe into their intoxilyzer, then charged him with drunken driving.
He has two previous convictions for drunken driving.
In April, O'Reilly, through his defense attorney, Carl A. Parise, asked that the charges be dismissed because police had no probable cause to stop him and no warrant to conduct chemical tests to show if he was intoxicated.
A separate motion was filed after Parise found that at least five of the cases which he wanted to compare with his client's had been sealed because the defendants' records had been expunged.
In his motions, O'Reilly claimed several test cases that had been reviewed showed police had changed some of the original intoxilyzer readings they recorded on documents in more than a dozen test cases.
At a hearing yesterday, Zottola threatened McKees Rocks police Chief Robert Martineau with contempt of court if he did not turn over the records.
Martineau complied.
Zottola will hear arguments tomorrow from Parise and Assistant District Attorney Larry Sachs, who wants to withhold access to three more test cases.
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