Experts told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during its investigation into vials used to test suspected drunken drivers that the Fort Worth Police Department’s practice of assembling its own kits may be affecting the test results.
Rather than buying pre-assembled kits, the department assembles its own to save money. But the smaller tubes the department purchases contain less of an additive that is necessary to help prevent fermentation, which can result in overstated figures for blood alcohol concentration, according to the Star-Telegram’s report.
“You’re talking about people’s freedom,” Dr. Jimmie Valentine, a medical pharmacology and toxicology consultant based in Gulfport, Mississippi, told the newspaper. “If you wrongly convict them, you’ve convicted somebody … on bad science. That’s not acceptable.”
During a driving-under-the-influence trial for a 33-year-old Lubbock man in June, defense attorney Frank Sellers saw the smaller vials and unsuccessfully used it in his case. That trial spurred the newspaper’s investigation.
“I knew immediately it was the wrong vial and there was a problem,” Sellers told the Star-Telegram.
The Tarrant County District Attorney’s office and the Fort Worth Police Department said there is nothing wrong with the vials.
“We agree with the judge in the trial that the Fort Worth Crime Lab is not and was not using the wrong tubes,” Samantha Jordan, a spokeswoman with the district attorney’s office, told the newspaper. “This was simply a defense ploy that the jury didn’t buy.”
Sellers told the Star-Telegram that jury members told the judge after the trial that they disregarded the blood alcohol test in finding the defendant guilty, but Judge Deborah Nekhom could not be reached for comment by the newspaper to confirm this.
