A mechanic at a gas station was in charge of the carbon monoxide emissions inspections, as required annually by state law. The test was performed by machines which produced a computer printout of the car’s performance after a sensor monitored the automobile’s exhaust.
When the gas station owner obtained a new machine which performed the tests more quickly, she gave the old machine (which was still in good working order) to the mechanic, who installed it in the garage of her home.
During the month after obtaining the machine, the mechanic gratuitously performed inspections for her friends and regular customers so that they could take the test at the gas station without fear of getting a rejection sticker. The mechanic kept the printouts of these tests.
The state has accused the gas station owner of altering her new machine so that she could give inspection stickers to customers whose cars exceeded the applicable standards. Many of the customers in question had also tested their cars in the mechanic’s garage. A comparison of the results shows no discrepancy between the mechanic’s tests and the gas station owner’s tests.
The gas station owner is on trial, accused of conducting false emission tests. The gas station owner’s attorney proposes to introduce photocopies of the records of the mechanic’s tests on the same vehicles as those concerning which the gas station owner’s tests are in question.
Those records are:
A. Admissible as records of regularly conducted activity.
B. Admissible only if a proper foundation is laid that the mechanic’s machine was capable of accurate readings and was in good working order at the time of the tests.
C. Inadmissible as hearsay not within any recognized exception to the hearsay rule.
D. Inadmissible, because the records were not the original documents.
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