BOSTON -- Massachusetts' highest court hands prosecutors who try drunken-driving cases a victory Thursday.

The Supreme Judicial Court rejected a challenge to drunken-driving laws that would have required prosecutors to provide expert testimony about a suspect's blood-alcohol level at the time of a traffic stop, rather than when a breathalyzer test is given.

The SJC ruling follows a Team 5 Investigation that uncovered this legal loophole. In some counties in Massachusetts, Team 5 found, upto ninety percent of breath tests are not admitted into evidence after defense attorneys successfully challenge the tests' accuracy.

Team 5 Investigates reported that according to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, since 2002 the number of drivers who fail breath tests is up 26 percent, but convictions for drunken-driving are down 23 percent.

The case before the SJC was filed by two attorneys whose clients had been charged with drunken driving, and had challenged the lack of time restrictions in the law, saying it routinely takes an hour or more for police to bring suspects back to the station to administer blood-alcohol tests.

During that time lapse, they said, blood-alcohol content could either rise or decline, leading to inaccurate test results being used by prosecutors during trial.

In both cases, lower court judges ruled that without providing an expert witness who could testify to what the blood-alcohol level was at the time of the traffic stop, state prosecutors could not introduce the breath test results.

The lawyers challenged a 2003 law that toughened the state's drunken driving law by considering a blood-alcohol level of .08 or higher on a breath test automatic proof of alcohol impairment. Under the old law, registering a level of .08 was considered "a permissible inference" that a driver was drunk, but not automatic proof.

In Team 5's March investigation, Worcester County District Attorney Joe Early said "Juries are always looking for that piece of evidence so it's tougher. I think it's coming to a head. There's a demand for change -- Mothers Against Drunk Driving is screaming for a change. Legislators are screaming for a change. Victims of drunk drivers are screaming for a change."

But James Geraghty, a Norwell attorney who specializes in OUI cases said, "You have to have evidence that's reliable. If it's not reliable for any one of many reasons, I don't think the jury should hear evidence against them."

MADD's Barbara Harrington said "The difference there is this business of the breath test being dismissed. If you're called for a drunk driving jury and there's no mention of breath test evidence, that doesn't mean there wasn't a breath test. There may have been a breath test failed."