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Welcome once again to Lato's Law. Here's Steve Lato.
We've got another one of those stories where a systemic problem could lead to dozens if not
hundreds of convictions being thrown out. And this is the kind of thing it should not happen.
So the stories from California Fox 11 published it. Jay sent it to me. Thank you very much.
flawed California DUI test kits spark review of a decade of convictions, a decade of convictions.
California's legal system is facing a forensic crisis after it was discovered that
faulty equipment used by law enforcement agencies for nearly 10 years may have led to unreliable
evidence in DUI cases potentially resulting in wrongful convictions across the state.
That's according to the Los Angeles Times. The California Department of Justice recently
alerted 60 law enforcement agencies and seven district attorney's offices regarding flawed
kits according to the Times. The kits were for your analysis and they're manufactured by a company
and they contained only 100 milligrams of sodium fluoride. Now I'm sure you know what that means.
They're supposed to contain 750 milligrams of sodium fluoride and that was what was advertised
on the label. What that means is that sodium fluoride in this instance is a critical preservative
without an adequate amount of preservative samples containing high sugar or yeast can ferment
which creates alcohol within the vial after the sample is taken. So that would cause the
amount of alcohol in their percentage wise to spike. The process can lead to an artificially
elevated alcohol level so the director of the state's lab and of course an artificially
elevated alcohol level is not what you want in your sample. The state's audit flag 97 tests,
that's quite a few. But here's the thing, alcohol levels were at or near the 0.04 percent legal
limit for commercial drivers but they're not quite sure how many other cases out there will have
this problem. So the total number of convictions that could be overturned is unknown. While large
counties like Los Angeles and San Francisco use their own labs and were unaffected, the untold
number of cases in smaller jurisdictions depends on local reviews. It is also unclear why there was a
delay between the state discovering the flaw because they discovered it back in August of last year
and the widespread notification of defense attorneys in early this year. So it turns out
that the flawed kits they believe were being shipped as early as 2016, 2016. In 2025 the state
justice department learned that the kits were producing false positives and in September of last
year replacement kits with the correct amounts of sodium fluoride were distributed. In January of
this year the lab director formalized the flawed explanation in a letter to prosecutors and in
March public defenders and local agencies began receiving formal notifications to start their case
by case reviews. So if you sent a letter to an attorney said by the way, did you have any cases
involving your analysis with alcohol in the last 10 years go pull the files and I'll tell you
right now that many attorneys keep their files for seven years but nowadays with things being
digital and what not many attorneys probably do have the older files but that's a scary concept.
The idea that somebody could have been convicted of drunk driving in essence and discover later that
oh it was based on a flawed test and that was 10 years ago because that means that you probably
gone through all the nightmare of having your license revoked or suspended or whatever and the
points on your license and the increased insurance there are people out there who lose their jobs
if they've been busted for drunk driving. So what do you do now when you find somebody who say
nine years ago had a false positive to customer job. So what's next now is the public defender
offices across the 60 60 affected agencies are expected to audit years of files to identify clients
who may have been wrongfully convicted and the company behind this has not yet commented.
The state has already moved to ensure that all current testing kits meet the required chemical
standards to prevent further fermentation issues. So the reports based on, and that's time
about the whole story here, California Department of Justice correspondence and the Los Angeles times.
Now obviously if you got pulled over because you were driving poorly and they gave you roadside
fields of variety tests and you failed them and you blew up preliminary breath test and you were
off the charts and it took you back the station and they gave you a more accurate breathalyzer
and likewise you were off the charts and there was no your analysis involved. This will not save you
because this is only the people who are subjected to that. I suspect and if the people my audience
who know this because there are many truck drivers who are in my audience is that a common thing
they do with truck drivers. I suspect it is because as I mentioned someplace in there of that being
possible. So it's a scary concept because so many people will defer to the science and when
somebody says we've got this machine and it's accurate to point zero zero whatever and we ran
these numbers three times and they came up identical every single time people who hear that on a
jury go oh okay it's not even a hard hard call most of the time but here where they said well
we took a urine sample and we ran it the numbers were off the charts it turns out that there's
an example where the science ain't working but it's not the fault of science it's the fault of
whoever's making these kits and they're putting in the wrong amount of a particular chemical and
on one level I'm not surprised it took him 10 years to figure this out because who's going to
think that the company would do that. On the other hand if you're a crime lab and you're running tests
you would think that somewhere along the line there would be an example where somebody had either
a breath test or a blood draw that they could compare to the urine sample and if those are wildly
inaccurate that's where you start questioning it but I've handled drunk driving cases I've
handled drunk many drunk driving cases I don't handle it anymore but I used to handle it quite a
bit years and years and years ago I've read more police reports about drunk driving than it ever
cared I'd think about again and luckily in the cases I handled I don't think any of my clients
ever hurt anybody like nobody ever got killed in an accident or anything like that I had some
clients who just you know got pulled over and they were drunk allegedly and you know those
cases almost always hinged on a PBT and then a breathalyzer at the station I saw a couple examples
where there's also a blood draw but if somebody called me right now it's a Hey Steve 10 years ago
you represented somebody and it turns out that I'm like the idea that that could be a bad conviction
or or a bad plea based on the prosecutor saying here's what we got against your person
is a scary concept because of what happens to you on a drunk driving case and so like I said
your license restricted or revoked points higher insurance and I have known people who lost their
jobs because of drunk driving convictions and if somebody came back now and said oops do over
I would I would be beside myself that happened to me so Jay thanks for sending this story by the
Jay said Steve I'm sure you're getting buried to this story no you're the only one it happens
other stories people go don't know if you've seen this and it's like not only have I seen it
but I did a video on it yesterday oh I'm sorry I didn't see that but here Jay said I'm sure you're
getting buried to this one no no this is the only one I got so thank you thank you flawed
California DUI test kits spark review for a decade of convictions that is from Fox 11 out of
California questions your comments put them below those talk to you later bye bye thank you for
watching lateo's law be your own friend I guess that means I'm going out shoe shopping



