Opinion ID: 2360438
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Joseph appeal

Text: In September 2007, respondent Claudette Joseph was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol for failing to maintain her travel lane. Joseph failed a field sobriety test, was arrested for DUI, and then submitted to a blood test. Joseph's blood sample, which was tested by Theresa Suffecool, an employee of Quest Diagnostics, indicated that Joseph's blood-alcohol concentration was 0.28, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08. Appellant DMV revoked Joseph's license, and she requested an administrative hearing. At the hearing, the DMV presented Suffecool's affidavit, in which she stated that she had previously been qualified in the Eighth Judicial District Court to testify in an unrelated criminal case as an expert for the testing of blood to determine the presence of alcohol. Joseph challenged the admissibility of Suffecool's affidavit under NRS 50.320 because in the case relied upon by the DMV to qualify Suffecool to testify as an expert, the parties had stipulated to Suffecool's qualifications without providing any substantive or qualitative evaluation of her background or experience. The administrative law judge admitted Suffecool's affidavit in Joseph's case, concluding that the stipulation in the unrelated criminal case constituted proper expert qualification by a district court under NRS 50.320, and ultimately affirmed the revocation of Joseph's license. Joseph filed a petition for judicial review. The district court reviewed the administrative record, as well as the procedural facts of the district court case relied upon by the DMV qualifying Suffecool to testify as an expert, and determined that while the [DMV] can proceed with affidavits and declarations of witnesses qualified by district court order on stipulations pursuant to the statute, NRS 50.275, it should do so only where it is clear that qualification by a district court has been done on a record that at least shows the qualifications. Because Suffecool's qualifications were not evident from the record in either the case relied upon by the DMV or in Joseph's case, the district court granted Joseph's petition for judicial review and reinstated her driver's license. This appeal follows.