Lab Mixes Up Blood Tests of DUI Suspect

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department crime laboratory mixed up the blood test of a Ventura law school student in a drunk driving case last July, then failed to notify the driver after a retest showed she was not intoxicated when arrested, authorities have confirmed.

That series of mistakes and miscommunications has left the 26-year-old law student in legal limbo before a state Department of Motor Vehicles hearing board, where she still faces a suspension of her driver’s license, officials said.

“There was an error on our part -- something we need to fix in the future,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Brent Morris, who oversees crime-lab operations. “We did send out the information, and we thought it was being relayed [to the defense]. It wasn’t. We’ll do better.”

Responding to a complaint from Ventura defense attorney Kevin DeNoce, Morris confirmed that a blood sample from DeNoce’s client shortly after her 4 a.m. arrest on July 15 was switched with that of another driver whose blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit of 0.08%.

As a result, DeNoce’s client, who asked not to be identified because it could hurt her professionally, was suspected of driving with a 0.18% level of alcohol in her blood, instead of the 0.07% confirmed months later.

Even after two Nov. 3 retests confirmed the lower reading, the crime lab never notified DeNoce or his client of the error because of botched communications, county officials acknowledged.

DeNoce said he learned of the retest results by accident Jan. 29. A consulting forensics investigator who had obtained a retest in a different mid-July case told DeNoce that his client’s blood had also been retested -- and that it had proved she was not legally drunk while driving.

“If this is what somebody has to do to get to the truth in this county, then God help all of the people that come into the system,” DeNoce said.

Morris said county prosecutors had told the crime lab not to reveal blood test results to defense lawyers in pending criminal cases. The correct procedure is for a prosecutor to give that information directly to defense lawyers, he said. Also, because more than one blood sample was involved, the lab analysts preferred that the prosecutor speak directly with defense attorneys.

When laboratory manager Renee Artman was informed of the mistaken test results Nov. 3, she notified supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Redmond in a brief memo. The crime lab assumed that Redmond would in turn notify DeNoce of the error, Morris said.

That was a faulty assumption, Redmond said, because he had closed the criminal case against DeNoce’s client two months earlier, after concluding that there was a serious problem with the blood-alcohol test result.

A California Highway Patrol roadside breath test had indicated that the alcohol level was 0.08%, compared with the crime lab’s 0.18% result.

“In all the DUIs I’ve had, that was a stunner,” said Redmond, who directs all felony and misdemeanor prosecutions. “You can see a difference of 0.01% or 0.02% up or down, but it’s not going to be off by 0.10%.”

Because no criminal case was pending, the DMV was moving in a separate state action to suspend the license of DeNoce’s client, and the crime lab should have directly notified the lawyer or his client, Redmond said.

“That should be automatic,” he said. The crime lab should change its procedures to make sure such a mistake never happens again, he said.

Redmond said that a motorist could be prosecuted for driving under the influence with blood-alcohol levels of 0.05% to 0.07%, but only if other factors indicate impaired judgment, such as swerving or an inability to perform standard roadside sobriety tests.

None of these factors existed in the law student’s case, he said. She was stopped because she was driving 10 or 15 mph over the speed limit, he said. And she was tested because of an alcohol odor in her car, not because of erratic driving.

Morris said the crime lab did promptly fax a corrected report to the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Ventura.

But DMV spokesman Bill Branch said, “We did not receive any communication about problems with the original lab test.”

Artman could not be reached for comment.