Source: http://duiblog.arizonaduicenter.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 21:11:36+00:00

Document:
Lawrence Koplow, Koplow Law Firm.
You are going to buy a new home. The house is 2000 square feet on a 3/4 acre lot. You hire Rich (the termite inspector) to check it out before you buy. After all, no one wants to buy a house with termites.
Good news! The house passed. No termites. Thus, you buy the house.
Bad news! A month after the sale closes you discover - termites.
What? How could this happen?
You go back and look a little deeper in the method of inspection Rich relied upon. You find out his methodology was to only check "one square inch" of the floor in the house. When he did not find anything wrong within the "one inch" he assumed everything else was also termite free.
A part of something does not always represent the whole. Determining how many termites are in "one square inch" of a house does not really answer the question whether you have a termite problem.
The termite inspector committed what logicians call the all things are equal fallacy. This occurs when when it is assumed, without justification, that conditions have remained the same at different times and places.
The same danger is present when attempting a forensic measurement. For example, in a typical DUI case where a blood sample is taken, the lab will test less than a M&M size sample of blood. However, in Arizona the legal definition of an alcohol concentration is grams per 100 micro-liters. Translation, the legal definition of an alcohol concentration requires multiplying the results of the "one inch" by about 1000 (assuming the M&M is about 100 micro-liters).
The danger is assuming the rest of 1000 micro-liters (or 100 milliliters) has a proportional amount of ethanol in it. Small errors multiplied by 1000 can easily mislead you to believe that a person's alcohol concentration is above a legal limit when it is not.
Like the termite inspection, it is up to the crime laboratory to prove their justification for assuming using such a tiny amount below the legal definition of an alcohol concentration answers the question - is the person above the legal limit? After all, no one wants termites...or people being wrongfully convicted.
The Supreme Court Splits the baby in the Scottsdale Crime Lab Cases.
The highly anticipated Arizona Supreme Court opinion regarding the Scottsdale Crime Lab scandal was issued yesterday. In a very Solomon like decision, the Court granted both sides some relief.
While the Court decided the blood alcohol measurements are admissible - they did not hold they are reliable. There is a big difference. As a matter of fact, the Court expressed its concerns with the Scottsdale Crime Lab's "shaky" evidence.
The Court merely held the prosecution may present the blood alcohol measurements to a jury and argue they are reliable. The jury will make the final decision.
This standard is similar to a finding there was probable cause for a person's case to proceed to trial. However, at trial, the same evidence will now need to exceed a much higher threshold - beyond reasonable doubt.
What Effect Did Yesterday's Decision Have On The Lower Courts' Rulings?
There were two lower court rulings: (1) the trial court's ruling suppressing the evidence; and (2) the Court of Appeals ruling reversing.
The Arizona Supreme Court vacated the relevant portions of the Court of Appeals decision and the trial court's ruling. It then issued a new opinion which provided additional guidance on the admissibility of scientific evidence in a jury trial.
The Legal Boundaries Of The Supreme Court's Decision.
A few years ago, Arizona adopted something called the Daubert standard for the admission of scientific evidence. This was reflected by an amendment to Rule 702 of the Arizona Rules of Evidence.
The Court's holding here was limited to only one of the requirements of Rule 702. Specifically the ruling is limited to subsection (d) of Rule 702, which focuses on the reliable application of a methodology to the facts.
What Did Each Side Get Out Of The Supreme Court's Decision?
The prosecution avoids mass dismissals of cases where they claim a driver was impaired, but now they have to persuade a jury in every case that the crime lab's forensic malpractice does not matter.
The defense is primarily benefited in two ways: (1) the right to present all the evidence of the crime lab's malpractice is firmly established; and presumably (2) the right to obtain evidence of software malfunctions and errors from the crime laboratory also appears to be affirmed.
The Court's acknowledgement that the evidence presented at the 17 day pretrial hearing was both relevant and admissible at trial, implicitly holds that the defense has a right to this evidence in discovery. This is a significant change.
The majority of the evidence presented to the trial court by the defense was not provided by the prosecution. It was obtained through the collaboration of the defense community and through requests made pursuant to Arizona's public records laws.
Moreover, before the pretrial hearing, there was a court order requiring the Scottsdale Crime Lab to provide the defense with all the data produced in 2011. They were given a significant amount of time to comply, but did not even attempt to gather the information. Instead, the prosecution appealed the order, and the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed.
The prosecution convinced the appellate court that the defense was merely on a "fishing expedition." However, in hindsight, it turns out there were some pretty big fish in the pond. We can only imagine what we would have found if the yesterday's opinion had been in place at that time.
The holding also appears to clear the way for the defense to present a jury with evidence of the hundreds of catastrophic software malfunctions resulting in unreliable and misleading evidence. The jury may now discover, that for years, the lab hid this damming evidence. They may hear of internal crime lab emails from analysts admitting to deleting "incorrect results."
And yes, prior to this decision, the prosecution vigorously argued the jury should not hear this evidence.
Does This Decision End The Debate Over The Scottsdale Crime Lab's Forensic Malpractice Issues?
The issues will continue to be litigated - one case at a time. However, we now have some new rules of the road that empower the defense to present their case.
...the decision means we can't shop for justice at Costco. While there will not be a bulk dismissal of consolidated cases, we still get to present these issues one case at a time...jury by jury.
Arizona Supreme Court rules on Scottsdale DUI evidence, Arizona Republic.
Tags: Aggavated DUI, Arizona DUI News, Arizona Felony DUI, Arizona Vehicular Assault, Arizona Vehicular Manslaughter, Attorney, Bernstein, Blood Alcohol Testing, Chemical Testing, Crime, DUI, DUI Defenses, DUI Trials, Extreme DUI, Forensic Science, Herman, In, Lab, Lawyer, Re, Scottsdale, Scottsdale DUI, Scottsdale DUI Attorney, Scottsdale DUI Lawyer, Super Extreme DUI, cases, dismissed., state, v.
I will provide a summary of the Supreme Court's opinion following its release.
Measuring is the assignment of a number, and all the uncertainties of that of that number, to something. The purpose of assigning a number is to give meaning to the object measured.
Uncertainty: A bag placed upon a scale shows its weight to be 41 pounds. If the bag must be less than 50 pounds, then the number produced by the scale indicates it meets this requirement. However, you must know how far from its true value might the 41 pound number be off by? Uncertainty is the amount of doubt (e.g. the amount of possible variation) you should expect that number might be off.
Fit for Purpose: Assume there are two scales. The same bag weighing 41 pounds is place on both scales. However, it was determined that Scale A produces numbers that can be off by as much as 30 pounds. It was also determined that the number produced by Scale B merely off by as much as 3 pounds. Knowing the amount of uncertainty contained in the number helps distinguish counting from measuring. Knowing the uncertainty allows you determine if the measurement is fit for the purpose of determine if the object exceeds 50 pounds.
Measuring relies upon estimation. The choice of data, the methodologies employed, and level of quality measures used tells you how confident you can be in the estimation. Once you have a reliable estimation of how close a number may be (or not be) to the true value, you can make informed decision as to what purposes the number can be used - and not used.
Counting is not the same as measuring. However, the two are often confused. Counting is usually a technique within a measuring process (methodology). Counting can result in an exact number. However, measurement will never claim to represent a true value. Measurements are merely estimations.
Counting an exact amount of something is often not possible or practical. The thing you are intending to measure (the measurand), the matrix it is found in, or the level of accuracy required may make counting impossible. Thus a system is needed to provide a reliable estimation which you can rely upon.
Distinguishing: Some molecules are so similar to others that it is often impossible continuously distinguish them from each other. Thus, they cannot be easily counted.
Location: Some substances are contained in places we cannot practically enter to count them. The best way to know how much alcohol is affecting a person's brain at a particular time would be to take a sample of brain tissue. However, society has not yet determined such a procedure falls outside the protections of a person's 4th Amendment rights.
Gas Chromatographs: The results of a gas chromatograph are often used to determine whether a person's alcohol concentration is above a legal limit in DUI cases. However, the machine does not measure a person's blood alcohol concentration. If properly used, the machine merely counts the number ethanol molecules in a gas portion of a headspace vial. Thus, it indirectly counts a microscopic amount ethanol from a tiny sample.
A measurement based upon a machine's indirect count of a substance results from combining it with algorithms, numerous assumptions, and historical data regarding the past performance of the machine (and software) used in the process. This is known as an uncertainty calculation.
In this manner, measuring requires much more than counting. Measuring requires more than merely assigning a number to an object. More importantly, one can assign a number to an object but not create a measurement. When this occurs it is not a measurement. It is a misrepresentation.
Counting is what you do to get a number. Measuring is what you do if you want to know the truth about the number.
Today at 11:00 a.m. the Arizona Supreme Court will hear oral arguments regarding whether to reinstate a trial court's finding that - blood alcohol measurements created by the Scottsdale Crime Lab are unreliable. You can read a history of this litigation by clicking here.
A case being selected by the Supreme Court for review is a rare event. Simple math shows it is unlikely that any particular case will be reviewed by the Arizona Supreme Court. The Court receives a substantial amount of “Petitions” to review lower court decisions, but it only selects a small percentage of them each year. However, because the issues in this case (it is actually a consolidation of 11 cases) will have wide-ranging consequences, it was an ideal case for the Court to review. The final ruling by the Court, regardless of who prevails, will likely affect how scientific evidence will be handled by Arizona courts for years to come.
1. Did the Court err by holding that Rule 702(d) challenges are excluded from judicial gatekeeping scrutiny under Arizona law?
2. Did the Court err in using the accuracy of the results as the criteria for a gatekeeping analysis instead of using the trustworthiness of the methodology used to generate the results?
3. Did the Court err in substituting its own judgment for the trial court’s without finding that the trial court’s decision constituted an abuse of discretion?
After reading this statement of the issues, one could jump to a conclusion from the way the issues are framed, that the Court is leaning in a particular the direction. A word of caution – no one knows how the court is leaning. The Court’s final opinion could easily list a different set of issues.
Today’s oral argument is being held at Arizona State University Law School. The argument is open to the public and starts promptly at 11:00 am. Everyone is welcome to attend – regardless of which side of the argument you are on.
The Arizona Supreme Court has decided to review the Court of Appeals' (COA) ruling regarding whether Scottsdale DUI results can be trusted.
Our ongoing legal battle over the defective software used by the Scottsdale Crime Lab (SCL) to measure BAC levels begins its final stage. The Supreme Court granted our request to review the COA's decision permitting prosecutors to rely upon the measurements generated by this software as a basis for a DUI conviction.
Over three years ago a few chromatograms (a graphical representation of a blood alcohol measurement) escaped the Scottsdale crime lab (SCL). It was something we had never seen before. The floodgates of evidence showing forensic malpractice soon opened.
We learned, that for several years, the SCL had known of serious defects in the software used to measure BACs. These malfunctions include assigning an incorrect result with the incorrect person (i.e. John gets Fred's result). No one in the lab had the expertise to explain why this was occurring, or how to "fix" it. According to an internal email we obtained from the SCL, they "buried" this from the rest of us.
Even after the defense brought this to light, the Prosecution continued to prosecute the public using this unreliable software. The penalties for those convicted include mandatorily incarceration and significant monetary fines (a portion of which the crime lab receives). They are currently still using these defective measurements to incarcerate people.
The Superior Court (felony cases) is where these rulings originated. The City of Scottsdale courts took a different approach. That story will be addressed in a separate post. In the Superior Court, the main case is State v. Herman (on appeal titled In Re Bernstein). There were two challenges in "Herman" that ended up in the COA.
Because we only had access to the initial documents that appear to have been allowed out of the SCL by accident, we did not know the scope of the problem.
We convinced two Superior Court Commissioners to hold a joint hearing. They agreed with our arguments and issued an order to produce all chromatograms from 2011. The Court also gave the Lab almost two months to provide them. The deadline came and went. The SCL admitted they did not even attempt to comply with the order.
We did not get the data. Today, the scope of the malfunctions still remains unknown.
After the COA's ruling, we requested a Daubert (reliability) hearing with the trial court. This would be Arizona's first substantive Daubert hearing (fortunately, the evidence Rules changed in 2012 to permit such a hearing). Combined, it lasted almost nine (9) months. To our surprise, we ended up getting material information in the Daubert hearing (Herman #2) that we did not even think to request in Herman #1.
At the same time, the Arizona Republic started to investigate our claims. Through their public records requests (and later our own) a treasure trove of damming evidence was obtained.
At the hearing, SCL personnel were testifying they understood the issues and put forth an “all was well” message. However, in contrast to their testimony, the Arizona Republic obtained internal emails, that told a much different story than “all is well.” Their "private" communications showed the court that the SCL personnel testifying, were less than forthcoming about the severity of the problems and their ability to comprehend them.
The combination of SLC personnel’s tainted testimony, and the testimony our forensic experts (including an independent forensic toxicologist, a certified quality assurance lab auditor, a and forensic software engineer), presented a powerful case that the SCL’s measurements and supporting testimony were not trustworthy.
Result - We Win! Blood tests are suppressed.
As in Herman #1, the prosecution turned to the court of appeals for relief.
Again, as in Herman #1, it was provided.
(2) and reinstate the trial court's ruling.
A few weeks ago, the Arizona Supreme Court decided to review the matter.
The Court's decision merely means they granted part one of our request: they will hear the case. They have set oral argument on February 17, 2015 at 11:00 am. It will be a road game for the Court, as it will be held at ASU Law School. The oral argument is open to the public, but it is expected to be a full house. If you want to attend, get there early.
An analyst from a crime lab testifies that a defendant, who is charged with DUI, has a blood alcohol concentration of .120. Despite the legal requirements that the state must prove the test is trustworthy, most jurors have made a blink judgement the that test is correct. As is often the case, the appearance of science is a powerful tool of persuasion. This is true even when the opinion is based upon junk science.
Here, despite the claims of the analyst and unbeknownst to the jury, the test result was done using unreliable equipment relying on defective software. Your challenge: undo the jury's initial judgments, demonstrate the analyst is too biased and lacking the qualifications to understand the severity of the equipment's defects, and show the result can't be trusted. This is no small task.
This task will take time. It requires a thorough understanding of the many underlying scientific disciplines involved. Adequately educating the jury will require information from several different sources. Each piece of evidence will present a different evidentiary challenge. In short, beyond the inherent difficulties of such cases, you also have a bandwidth problem.
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. DUI trials have time and evidentiary limitations. There are not intended to be semester long science classes. There are practical realities inhibiting you from properly educating a jury with the knowledge they need to debunk these unsound claims. If left unaddressed, a court may not even recognize this bandwidth dilemma.
Consider the problem in the following terms. A presentation that does not reach the audience persuades no one. If Netflix creates next years best new drama, but there is not enough bandwidth to stream it, then what was the point of creating it. No one pays a subscription fee to see a "buffering" message. Quality is meaningless without bandwidth.
Being right is does not convince a jury without an adequate opportunity to present it to a jury. In these cases, you don't have a right or wrong problem - you have a bandwidth problem. Accordingly, neglecting the bandwidth argument can be fatal. If you don't sufficiently address this issue, then no one may hear how right you are.
How did you get that number?
If you are making a decision based upon a measurement, then you have two choices.
The choice you make should be based upon how important the decision is that you’re basing the measurement upon. If you just want to know how hot it is outside, a twenty-year-old thermometer, combined with stepping outside will probably do. However, if the measurement is critical to an important outcome, then you need to ask, and answer, the question how did you get the number?
A critical measurement is a measurement where, the result of an important analysis, is dependent upon the measurement. A measurement is critical if an incorrect measurement could place people in danger. If a scientist measured the wrong amount of a drug when making a pill, then it could harm someone – that is a critical measurement.
If a lab employee measures the wrong amount of alcohol in your system in a DUI case, then it could result in an unwarranted prison sentence – that is also a critical measurement.
After the Supreme Court decided the case of Missouri v. McNeely, the question of when a warrant is required, before law enforcement may draw a person's blood became more interesting to say the least. On one side of the issue was the position that a blood alcohol concentrations is constantly changing, thus, there is a justification for law enforcement to bypass the traditional warrant requirement.
But it does not follow that we should depart from careful case-by-case assessment of exigency and adopt the categorical rule proposed by the State and its amici. In those drunk-driving investigations where police officers can reasonably obtain a warrant before a blood sample can be drawn without significantly undermining the efficacy of the search, the Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so. See McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed 153 (1948).
Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1555 (2013).
Is it really so surprising that what warrants a warrant is what is reasonable under the circumstances?
Tags: Aggavated DUI, Amendment, Arizona, Blood, Chemical Testing, Constitutional, DUI, DUI Arrests, Draws, Extreme DUI, Felony, Fourth, McNeely., Missouri, Phoenix, Protections, Requirement, Rights, Scottsdale, Scottsdale DUI, Super Extreme DUI, Vehicular Assault, Warrant, Warrantless, for, v.
The results produced by a gas chromatograph are usually the difference between innocence and guilt in a DUI case. The prosecution’s purported blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is typically the “end-all be-all” of their case. Let’s take a look at how this machine creates such a critical measurement.
If done properly, gas chromatography is a reliable way to measure the amount of blood in an alcohol sample. However, automobiles are also reliable, but there are still thousands of car wrecks every day. There is no presumption of reliability simply because a gas chromatograph was used.
The measurement process has both human components and machine components. All steps in the process must be done correctly for the measurement to be trusted.
The goal of is to produce a measurement, which is both accurate and reliable.
Gas chromatography is an indirect measurement. The machine does not test liquid portion of a blood sample. In headspace gas chromatography, the machine converts substances to a gas, and then it must separate the different types of molecules in the sample. After separation, a microscopic amount of the gas is measured by software.
The machine must demonstrate it is able to separate different types of molecules before it can measure them. If it cannot properly separate different categories of molecules, then its measurements may be artificially higher.
Gas chromatography is done in manner like a production line. Multiple samples (usually over 100 vials) are being processed in a “batch.” It is essential to safeguard against the wrong information being assigned to the wrong sample.
Gas chromatograph - a machine that separates molecules, and then measures, the amount of the various components in a sample.
Gas Chromatography - the scientific process performed by a gas chromatograph.
Chromatogram – the graphical representation of the data produced by the gas chromatograph. This is where you will find the final measurement. A chromatogram is the machine’s conclusion.
The measurement process starts long before the gas chromatograph is actually turned on. The blood must be collected, identified, stored and transferred properly before the sample is put into the gas chromatograph. Even the best machines cannot account for, or identify, that a sample has been corrupted. The principle of garbage in garbage out must be kept in mind. That is, incorrect (or poor quality) input will always produce wrong output.
Human are also responsible for teaching the machine a specific alcohol concentration. The machine does not come out of the box knowing any specific alcohol concentration. Typically a lab will purchase approximately four (4) different alcohol concentrations from a vendor. For example, .01, .10, .20, .40 are often used to calibrate the machine.
These samples are put into the machine and the analyst programs the machine’s software to use these values. If the analyst tells the machine a sample is a .40 but it is really a .30, the machine cannot tell the difference. Ensuring a calibrator is what it purports to be is known as traceability.
The machine starts its analysis after a small portion (less than the size of the a single M&M) of each blood sample is put into a headspace vial. The headspace vials (usually over 100) containing the samples are loaded into a part of the machine called the autosampler.
The samples are then heated (in a headspace tube) forcing molecules in the liquid portion of the sample to rise. After the molecules are vaporized, a needle punctures the top of the headspace vial and extracts a microscopic portion of the gas above the liquid.
These vaporized molecules are pushed through long thin columns by a carrier gas (hydrogen or helium). These thin columns have a chemical coating inside them designed to interact with the molecules passing through them. The carrier gas moves at a constant pressure. This results in different molecules in the gas to group together (e.g. ethanol with ethanol, methanol with methanol). Each molecule group, such as ethanol, has a unique rate of speed. This accounts for the separation of the each substance in the columns.
After each molecule group is pushed out of the column, they will be pushed to a detector. The time when is substance exits the column is called the time it elutes. The detector’s software has been programmed to identify different substances by the time they elute from the column. The Flame Ionization Detector, as the name implies, then burns each molecule group and then measures how much is burned.
The software gathers the “raw data” and then processes it. The “process data” is graphically represented in something called a chromatogram. The measurement is found here.
The above summary just scratches the surface of the measurement process using a gas chromatograph. If you are going to rely upon the measurement produced by this technique, then every step in process (both the human and machine) must be shown to have been done correctly.
At the side of the road, law enforcement routinely makes DUI arrests based upon results of a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test. The underlying premise of the test is: you drink enough alcohol, and then you eyes will show HGN.
When should you trust a blood test result that claims to measures an alcohol concentration? Start by reading the test's "Warning Label." Here is an explanation on my legalcoffee blog.
In DUI cases, a machine called a gas chromatograph is often used to measure an alcohol concentration in a blood sample. The measurement, which the machine prints at the end of the process, is called a reported result. We are finally at the point in Arizona, where courts are starting to recognize that merely providing a reported result is not sufficient evidence. The law is coming to the same realization that science did many years ago: a reported result from a machine is an incomplete measurement.
A complete measurement includes more than just a reported result. As a matter of fact, simply providing a reported result is often misleading. A reported result is only complete when accompanied by a “statement of its uncertainty.” See NIST Technical Note 1297, 1994 Edition. No measurement is perfect. The result of any measurement is only an estimation of its value. A “statement of uncertainty” is the range of doubt that exists regarding a measurement.
To illustrate, let’s assume that a blood test result was .100. Let’s also assume, based on a review of the machine’s prior performance, a “range of uncertainty” was determined to be ± 5%, with a “confidence interval” of 100%. This means, the reported result could be as low as a .095 and as high as a .105. Moreover, this also means, if the same blood sample were repeatedly tested on this equipment, the result would only be outside of the ± 5% range 1 out of a million times. If this statistic were true, this would certainty be a reported result that you could trust.
On the other hand, what if for the same reported result of .100 the range was ± 30%, with a confidence interval of 50%? Here, this means the reported result could be as low as .070 or as high as .130. Furthermore, if you continued to test this sample on the same equipment, 300,000 times of out of a million, the reported result would be outside the range stated above.
When comparing the two complete test results, you can see that providing a mere reported result does not tell us the whole story. Merely telling us the reported result can actually tell us a very misleading story. Science will not accept incomplete measurements. Why should the law?
In July of 2012, I asked a member of the Scottsdale Crime Lab for an interview about some rumors. She refused and told me to get a court order. At that time I was surprised. Why would she refuse to do a routine interview? Today we know the answer.
Today we now know that: (1) the Scottsdale Crime Lab’s blood testing equipment is unreliable; and (2) the testimony of the crime lab personnel is not trustworthy. Don’t take my word for it – just read the court’s opinion by clicking here.
THE NEW ARIZONA DUI LAWS ARE HERE!
The mandatory jail requirements have been modified / reduced. There is a lot of legalese with this particular change. I will do a detailed post on the specifics soon. However, you should know the judges now have more discretion to reduced jail time for both extreme and non-extreme DUI convictions.
There are a lot more changes in the new law. The legislature, without a public debate, removed the statutory right to jury trial for non-extreme DUI cases. However, all extreme DUI charges and all second DUI charges still have an automatic right to a jury trial. There may still be a right to jury trial in regular DUI cases under Arizona's common law. In any event, the jury trial has not disappeared - there will be a big legal fight to come on this issue.
I will be posting additional details on the new laws in the coming days.
NHTSA "Visual Detection of DWI Motorists"
Arizona DUI Lawyer & Attorney, Lawrence Koplow at Koplow Law Firm. Phoenix and Scottsdale lawyer offering services related to dui defense, criminal defense, aggravated DUI and vehicular manslaughter.
Copyright © 2018, Koplow Law Firm.

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