How do I know the blood they tested was mine? »

August 8, 2009

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Let me tell you about a case that I have handled. I had a young client, I’ll call him "John", who had been arrested for drunk driving by the Los Angeles Police Department and they had drawn a blood sample from his arm. He repeatedly told me that he was innocent, and I believed him.

Problem: The sample that was drawn from his arm had the blood alcohol content of .15% which is almost twice the drunk driving limit.

Now what?

At that time I obtained a portion of the sample from the LAPD crime lab and then I sent it to a private lab that I use for reanalyzing blood of all my DUI clients. It waqs reported by the lab that the blood alcohol level was .13% though it was lower, but it was still much higher than to be under .08%. As I requested them so they also tested for preservative and anticoagulant (either fermentation or coagulation can raise the alcohol level in the sample), but they found everything in order. John still insisted that he was not driving under the influence of alcohol.

The only other possibility in this case was a faulty "chain of custody". Explaining this in other words, LAPD lab got the vial mixed up and someone else’s blood was tested by them. So I had the sample blood-typed to find out if it was that of another arrestee.

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