State Crime Lab Used Bad Tests For 10 Years

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

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