The state Supreme Court has appointed a special master to consider the motion of the state Attorney General's Office to relax rules for calibrating the Alcotest 7110 MkIII drunken driving tester.

The court appointed Joseph Lisa, currently an Appellate Division judge on recall, to serve as special master in the drunken driving appeal of State v. Cassidy. The attorney general sought changes to the rules as it copes with the discovery that a state trooper failed to properly calibrate Alcotest machines used in more than 20,000 drunken driving prosecutions.

The special master will make findings of fact and conclusions of law on the question of “Does the failure to test the simulator solutions with the NIST-traceable digital thermometer before calibrating an Alcotest machine undermine or call into question the scientific reliability of breath tests subsequently performed on the Alcotest machine?”