Battle Over Disputed DUI Cases Begins

One of the largest court battles in Ventura County history began unfolding Friday in a courtroom packed with attorneys who hoped to undermine about 300 questionable drunk-driving cases.

Looking frazzled but determined, Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren began wading through the names of accused and convicted drunk drivers whose cases are being challenged because of alleged improprieties in the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department crime lab.

He attempted to determine which defendants would waive their rights to a speedy trial--since the larger question of tainted lab results could take months to work its way through Ventura County’s overburdened court system.

In the 90-minute hearing, the judge managed to rule on one motion--rejecting prosecutors’ efforts to keep Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury from testifying--before postponing the rest of the case until Monday.

Clearly exasperated, Perren declared, “This is just a nightmare.”

Afterward, attorneys on both sides shook their heads over what they predict will be a long, arduous fight.

“It’s kind of a zoo,” said defense attorney Dennis Kucera, representing 15 clients. “It’s a massive undertaking.”

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The sheriff’s crime lab was thrown into disarray last November when supervisor Norm Fort, the only lab staffer qualified to oversee testing of blood-alcohol levels for county law enforcement agencies, resigned.

Crime lab commanders scrambled to get a new supervisor trained and the lab properly certified. But after granting a 90-day extension of its license, state health officials on March 19 ordered the lab to stop processing breath analyses.

Fearing that ending the breath analysis program would provide fodder for court appeals, the lab quietly continued doing the tests and regulating breath-test machines operated by every Ventura County police agency.

It was not until May that a new supervisor was certified and installed, and by then, defense attorneys across the county had begun appealing the arrests and convictions of drunk-driving clients.