California Criminal Lawyer Blog

Some ten criminally charged suspects were released from the San Diego jail when it was learned that their tests re sults were fraudulent. Pacific Toxicology, who owns a contract with San Diego to do drug testing for law enfocement, is on the brink of disaster.

This disaster falls right on the heels of the BioTox scandal that was uncovered last spring. Click HERE for BioTox story.

History repeats itself pretty regularly here in San Diego in San Diego with crime lab debacles. Several years ago I learned that in the early 1990's, Judge Michael Smyth, then a prosecutor with the City Attorney of San Diego, knew of and hid the fact that San Diego Sheriff's Crime Lab Analyst Belen Hebreo was testifying falsely in DUI cases for years. Click HERE for story.

So, back to the most recent scandal....

San Diego Union Tribune reports the criminal drug cases against as many as 1,000 people may have been tainted by false-positive narcotics tests from a Los Angeles-area lab, and defense lawyers in San Diego County have been told by prosecutors that their clients may be jailed due to faulty tests.

Ten people were released from jail in Vista on Wednesday because of questions about the lab work at Pacific Toxicology, in Chatsworth, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The vast majority of the cases involve misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of narcotics. Prosecutors are not sure how many cases, if any, might be overturned or otherwise altered because of the problems at the laboratory.

Officials in the District Attorney’s Office said the overwhelming majority of the cases probably involve drug testing for misdemeanors other than drunken driving. An employee who answered the phone at Pacific Toxicology in the San Fernando Valley told the Union-Tribune that no one there was able to comment.

A message left for the president of the company was not returned. Pacific Toxicology has a contract with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to test blood and urine samples.

Most of the municipal police departments in San Diego County also use the firm, with the exception of the city of San Diego itself, the Union-Tribune reported.

The lab initially came under scrutiny in October when the District Attorney’s Office notified defense lawyers in an e-mail that tests results from “a small number” of tests conducted in June and July had potential problems.

Deputy District Attorney Damon Mosler told the Union-Tribune the cases in question span from May until this month. He said sheriff’s officials no longer trusted results from the lab after a test result surfaced in one case in October.

“It was false-positive test, and it caused them to just lose confidence in the lab,” Mosler told the Union-Tribune.

A false positive indicates the presence of drugs when none are there. The Union-Tribune reported that a request for comment from the Sheriff’s Department Friday afternoon was not returned, and it was not possible to determine who much the county paid for its work.

Mosler told the Union-Tribune that many of the cases are probably closed now, with defendants probably pleading guilty and getting some sort of drug counseling.

He said prosecutors would not automatically move to dismiss any case that the lab worked on, and would retesting evidence in cases where that is warranted.

Drug convictions can carry ramifications outside the courtroom, affecting jobs, government benefits and other matters, the Union-Tribune reported.

Tags: Pacific Toxicology, San Diego criminal drug cases tainted, san diego district attorney, San Diego false positive drug tests, SDNN