State v. Squirewell, ___ N.C. App. ___, 808 S.E.2d 312 (Nov. 7, 2017)

The trial court did not err by allowing a state trooper to testify about the results of a chemical analysis of the defendant’s breath. On appeal, the defendant argued that the State failed to provide an adequate foundation for this testimony. Specifically, the court found that the requirements of G.S. 20-139.1 were satisfied. Here, the trooper testified: that he was certified by the Department of Human Resources to perform chemical breath analysis using the ECIR2 machine; that the defendant’s breath analysis was conducted on the ECIR2 machine; that he set up the ECIR2 machine in preparation for the defendant’s test according to the procedures established by the Department; about those specific procedures and that he followed the procedures in this instance; and that the machine worked properly and produced a result for defendant’s breath test. The court noted:

Although the trooper did not explicitly state that he had a Department issued permit to conduct chemical analysis on the day he conducted defendant’s breath test, which is certainly best practice, we hold the trooper’s testimony that he was certified to conduct chemical analysis by the Department and that he performed the chemical analysis according to the Department’s procedures was adequate in this case to lay the necessary foundation for the admission of chemical analysis results.