Court Opinion

ID: 9582487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:27:30.360581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:51.383941
License: Public Domain

Blackburn, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I dissent from the majority’s judgment and its analysis in Divisions 2 and 3; however, I concur with the majority’s analysis in the remaining divisions.
In Division 2, the majority determines that although OCGA § 40-6-392 (a) (1) expressly requires the individual conducting the blood test to possess a permit, such a permit is not required because the rules of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation do not require a permit for blood tests performed by the Division of Forensic Sciences. The majority fails to recognize the superior authority of the Georgia legislature in the promulgation of OCGA § 40-6-392 over the rules adopted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
In Harden v. State, 210 Ga. App. 673, 674 (436 SE2d 756) (1993), we recognized that OCGA § 40-6-392 established “a mandatory requirement applicable in any criminal case arising out of an alleged *491violation of OCGA § 40-6-391 and in which that violation is an essential element of the asserted criminal liability. The mandatory requirement is that when the State seeks to prove the violation by evidence of a chemical test, the State has the burden of demonstrating compliance with the statutory requirements.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Id. We determined the State’s failure to prove the qualifications of the person who withdrew the blood for testing rendered the evidence of the blood test inadmissible. Id. at 675.
OCGA § 40-6-392 (a) (1) requires that the person performing the test possess a valid permit. In the present case, the State did not present evidence that this requirement was met. Therefore, as in Harden, supra, I would find that the evidence of the blood test was inadmissible.
In Division 3, the majority finds that the State adequately proved the proper chain of custody. I cannot agree. The State failed to meet its burden of proving the proper chain of custody. The discrepancies in the descriptions of the samples’ color-coded stoppers and locker numbers by several witnesses cast doubt on the identity of the sample tested. This is not a case where two officers both remember being the person who mailed the correct blood sample to the laboratory, as in the Brinson case cited by the majority. Nor did the State’s explanation of the conflicting testimony (that the officer must have been mistaken as to the locker number containing the sample) demonstrate that the correct sample was tested, especially in light of the technician’s testimony regarding the color of the stoppers on the samples. See Williamson, cited by the majority.
The present circumstances go beyond a credibility and weight issue and the discrepancies are so numerous that the admissibility must be denied. Contrary to the argument of the majority, there was no evidence giving any assurance of the identity of the blood sample. Testimony revealed that the blood sample was put into two tubes in a certain locker. There was no evidence presented that those tubes were ever tested, as the tested tubes came from a different locker number and had different colored stoppers. At a minimum, this establishes that there has been a tampering with the evidence for which the State has offered no explanation. If these facts merely go to the weight of the evidence, the majority would preclude a defendant from ever being able to suppress illegal evidence as long as some possibility is offered by the State, in explanation, of one of the discrepancies. The explanation that the tested tube had a grey stopper (as did one of the original tubes), ignores the fact that the tubes were together and the original pair included a red-stoppered tube while the tested pair contained a yellow and black-stoppered tube. There is no explanation for how that occurred. It is the State which has the burden of proof, not the defendant. Under the present facts, the State has not established *492a reasonable assurance of the identity of the blood sample. See Patterson v. State, 224 Ga. 197 (2) (160 SE2d 815) (1968).
Decided December 5, 1994.
Robert W. Chestney, for appellant.
Gerald N. Blaney, Solicitor, Jessica R. Towne, Richard E. Thomas, Assistant Solicitors, for appellee.