Judge Fights to Contain Issues in Crime Lab Case

Legal jockeying in the massive Ventura County crime laboratory case began in earnest Monday as attorneys argued the first of a series of motions that could help decide the fate of about 300 drunk-driving arrests.

As prosecutors pushed to obtain two years’ worth of crime lab records held by former lab chief Norm Fort, defense attorneys fought the threat of their own test case backfiring on them.

And Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren wrestled to keep the complex legal quarrels rising on both sides from obscuring the case’s central issue: How will the crime lab’s licensing woes affect the legal status of the drunk-driving cases?

Perren warned attorneys that he wanted to keep the court’s focus on that question: “I have a very narrow issue to decide, and I’m going to try like the dickens to keep it there,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris had asked Perren to let him obtain and present records to the court on blood-alcohol tests for the two years leading up to Fort’s Nov. 16 retirement.

The lab in December received a 90-day extension on its state license while seeking a replacement for Fort. When the 90 days were up and Fort’s replacement had still not been certified, state health officials told the lab on March 19 to stop doing blood-alcohol tests.

But the lab continued doing the tests while struggling to win certification. On April 10, the district attorney’s office issued a letter notifying the defense bar of the problems.

Kossoris argued that the judge should see the 1994-96 records to get an idea how the lab was run before Fort’s departure.

But Perren rejected Kossoris’ motion, saying the past had no bearing on the central issue of the case.

“As I understand, the lab lost its license on March 19 and there was a failure to make a disclosure of that until the D.A.’s letter [to the Ventura County defense bar] on April 10,” Perren said.

Arguments could be limited to that small window or--at the very broadest--to the window between Nov. 16 and May 23, the day when Fort’s successor was certified, he said.

Kossoris also asked Perren to take judicial notice of Judge Edward Brodie’s ruling last week in the drunk-driving case of Rey David Diaz.

Diaz’s case was pulled out of the 300 or more questionable cases and is being tried separately because he insisted on his right to a speedy trial.

The public defender’s office in that case called many of the witnesses who are expected to testify in the larger crime lab case later this year.

But Brodie ruled that Diaz’s breath-test results would be admitted, saying that while some of the crime lab’s staffing and procedures violated state laws, the crime lab never lost its license.

Defense attorney Bob Huber, one of the team of lawyers representing the interests of the 300 drunk-driving defendants, argued that Perren must not let Brodie’s rulings on the Diaz case make decisions for him in the larger case.

But Perren assured him, “I’m not going to sit here and rubber-stamp another judge’s hearing, to which 300 other cases were not a party.”

The judge said he will decide how to label the prosecution’s delay in notifying defense lawyers about the problems at the lab--whether it was a violation of discovery law, “a villainous act or just a screw up,” Perren said.