Court Opinion

ID: 9735868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:33:42.686078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:49.602341
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE McDADE, dissenting: The majority appears to hold that as long as the three-pronged statutory requirement for admission of blood test results as a business record has been met, there is no requirement that the State prove that the blood which was tested was drawn from defendant. With all due respect, I find that decision to be logically and legally insupportable, and I dissent. The record shows that McDonough District Hospital paramedic Eric Starbuck testified that, pursuant to a standing order from the hospital’s emergency room doctor, he drew blood from defendant in the ambulance at the accident site. The ambulance arrived at the hospital at 12:02 a.m., so that blood had to have been drawn sometime between 11:25 p.m., when the crash occurred, and 12:02 a.m. In his testimony, Dr. Arthur Thrasher, the emergency room doctor, confirmed his standing order that four tubes of blood be drawn prior to the patient’s arrival at the emergency room. Upon arrival at the hospital, that blood is marked and subjected to a variety of tests, including one for the presence of alcohol. Dr. Thrasher also testified that the blood which was the subject of the lab report had to have been taken pursuant to his order rather than Deputy Lundgren’s request because it was tested by the hospital’s lab. Dr. Thrasher did not testify that he ever ordered other blood to be drawn from defendant. There is no lab test result purporting to be for blood collected or turned in and labeled prior to 12:45 a.m. There is also no evidence either that the test blood was that drawn earlier or that blood was drawn from the defendant again. This problem is compounded by the indication, in the report, that a CBC test sample was collected from defendant at 8:37 a.m. — five hours after his transfer to another hospital. In this confusing situation, there is no way to establish that the blood tested was actually defendant’s blood without something in the nature of chain-of-custody testimony. Defendant relies on People v. Ethridge, 243 Ill. App. 3d 446, 610 N.E.2d 1305 (1993), in which the court found that there is no requirement on the State to introduce the actual blood serum as part of the foundation for admissibility of the blood test results. “Rather, the foundational question presented is whether it was in fact defendant’s blood that was tested and produced the result sought to be admitted at trial. Provided the State can show that it was defendant’s blood that was used to determine defendant’s BAC, then such BAC test results may be introduced under section 11 — 501.4 if the other criteria for admissibility set forth in that section are met.” (Emphasis added.) People v. Ethridge, 243 Ill. App. 3d at 464, 610 N.E.2d at 1316. The majority holds that Ethridge’s requirement that the State show defendant’s blood was used for the test is only dicta. Therefore, since the lab report says it is defendant’s blood, that assertion should be accepted without any foundational showing of accuracy because the business record rule does not require it. One wonders how comforted the majority would be by such fine legal distinctions if we were being convicted of DUI on the basis of tests conducted on blood possibly drawn from someone else. Our responsibility is to determine, not whether it is possible that defendant committed the crime, but rather whether the State has proven him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I do not believe it has. I would reverse the conviction and I, therefore, dissent.