Drunk Driving Case May Test Waters for Challenges of Crime Lab Analyses

In what could be a dry run for the upcoming court fight over some 300 drunk-driving cases allegedly handled improperly by the Ventura County Crime Lab, attorneys quizzed witnesses Wednesday about blood-alcohol tests in a single DUI case.

Rey David Diaz of Oxnard was arrested April 5 on suspicion of driving drunk because his blood-alcohol readings were in excess of the legal .08% limit on breath analyzers used by Oxnard police, officers testified Wednesday.

Diaz’s case could have been included in the huge bundle of arrests that defense attorneys are preparing to challenge because of alleged improprieties at the sheriff’s crime lab between November and May.

But Diaz insisted on his right to a speedy trial, rather than waiting until an Aug. 14 hearing for a chance to get his driver’s license back, said Deputy Public Defender Maria Santana.

The sheriff’s crime lab tests blood, breath and urine for all of Ventura County’s police agencies, including Oxnard. And it ensures its breath-testing machines are calibrated for accuracy.

But a squad of defense attorneys plans to argue at the Aug. 14 hearing that the crime lab was operating without a license between November and May--thus invalidating hundreds of blood-alcohol tests done at the lab, and breath tests run on machines that it oversaw.

The public defenders office began pressing a motion in Municipal Court last week to have a judge reject Diaz’s breath test results as inadmissible because the crime lab had been ordered three weeks before the arrest not to do any more breath tests until its license difficulties were sorted out.

“We want to urge the district attorney to lay a foundation as to the admissibility of . . . Intoxilyzer results,” said Santana. The motion also seeks to learn “whether they violated Mr. Diaz’s constitutional rights by failing to reveal that they were not to be doing the tests.”

Diaz’s lawyers would not say whether his case was being used to test evidence for those future cases. But their motion, in an otherwise simple DUI matter, is being litigated by the top prosecutor and defense attorney involved in the larger crime lab fight.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Kossoris and Deputy Public Defender Brian Vogel have been in court since last Thursday questioning key players in the crime lab issue--whom they will probably see again should the larger case go to trial.

They include state Department of Health Services inspector Clay Larsen, who began investigating the lab’s certification after the lab’s former alcohol specialist, Norm Fort, quit in November and threw the lab into disarray.

Testimony also came from Capt. Leslie Warren, head of the crime lab, and from forensic alcohol specialist Halle Weingarten, who took over Fort’s job on a temporary basis while the lab struggled to get its certification papers in order.

And Wednesday, lab testing engineer Rene Artman testified at length, describing efforts to get newer-model Intoxilyzers set up at the lab and running under prescribed procedures.

Under questioning from Vogel, Artman testified that as late as April 1, Forensic Alcohol Specialist Dea Boehme was still setting up testing methods for the new machines--nearly two weeks after the Department of Health Services had told the lab to stop doing alcohol tests altogether.

Asked about the Diaz hearing’s implications for the larger DUI challenge, Vogel declined to comment after the hearing, except to say, “My client’s demanded his rights to a speedy trial, and we’re presenting evidence about the admissibility” of the breath tests.

Kossoris also declined to comment directly on why he was working side-by-side with Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin Suh, the Diaz trial attorney.

But Kossoris said during a break: “I’ve already said in open court that I think the defense is using this [hearing] as discovery for the larger DUI case.”