The state toxicology lab in Indiana was audited. The auditors found that out of 2,000 marijuana tests, 200 of them were in error. That is 10%. What is more disturbing is that 50 of those tests involved “conscious manipulation of lab results” by lab workers. In other words, the lab technicians faked the results. These drug tests put people in prison! Here is the story from an Indiana newspaper.
At the same time, the Kansas Legislature is debating a bill that would relieve workers from the Sedgwick County and Johnson County Crime Labs from having to come to court and prove their credentials before their testimony about a lab result is admissible. The story says that House Bill 2057 is “designed to speed court proceedings”.
When dealing with science, speed is not necessarily a good thing. The desire to be “efficient” leads to things like “conscious manipulation of lab results”. More and more Kansas City DUI cases involve blood and urine tests. This is also happening elsewhere in the state. Law enforcement officers are looking for signs of drug use, both legal and illegal, in Kansas DUI cases these days. People are being charged with DUI in Kansas based upon their ingestion of medications for which they have a prescription, as well as the use of alcohol. Breath tests can not show whether a person is under the influence of drugs, so the officers use blood or urine tests. These tests go to state labs where they are eventually tested.
If you have a Kansas DUI case involving a blood test or urine test you need to be prepared to challenge the lab results, the lab procedures and the qualifications of the analyst. A Kansas DUI lawyer should make his best effort to obtain a detailed description of the manner, method, and procedures used to perform the alcohol concentration analysis of the specimen including the instruments utilized, their size and model number, identification of all fluids, chemicals, reagents, and compounds by measurement and temperature, the make and model of any gas chromatograph/spectrophometer used and the light wavelength it was calibrated for, a record of the specific times each portion of the analysis was performed. This is barely scratching the surface, but you get the idea. These labs are run by people, and people can make mistakes or even manipulate results. While speed and efficiency are good on the one hand, someone has to take the time to look hard at these lab results and make sure that good science is not being sacrificed.