Evidence Tampering Casts Doubt on DUI Blood Test Results in Tennessee

One of the cornerstones of our justice system is that a person cannot be convicted of a crime without evidence of his or her guilt. To ensure the integrity of the evidence collected against a person, police departments and crime labs have procedures in place to minimize the risk of tampering, tainting or destruction of evidence.

Of course, for the system to work, each employee must follow the correct procedures and rules when handling evidence. Even the best-planned system is doomed to fail when an employee disregards the rules. Unfortunately, such an act recently happened in Tennessee when an internal investigation revealed that an employee mishandled evidence in a drunk driving case.

The employee, who worked at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), is accused of switching two blood alcohol samples for a vehicular homicide case. The employee allegedly switched the blood alcohol samples just before the sample was to be tested to determine the amount of alcohol within it. The employee is also accused of failing to follow a series of subsequent procedures that would have revealed the error. This suggests that the incident was not an isolated accident, but was done intentionally.

The internal investigation was triggered when a blood sample that was analyzed by the TBI employee was sent off to a private lab by the accused's attorney to crosscheck the results. The TBI's lab had reported that the suspect's blood alcohol level was .24-triple the legal limit. However, the private lab analysis of the blood sample showed the level to be .01, which is well within the legal limit.

The Bureau of Investigations employee was fired following the incident. Since the employee was responsible for blood alcohol testing in about 2,800 drunk driving cases, it throws the result of other tests into question. As a result of the employee's actions, there could be several false results among the other cases that could potentially lead to wrongful DUI convictions.

In order to ensure that the test results are correct for the employee's other cases, the TBI recently announced that it would have the blood samples from all of the cases retested at a private lab. In addition, the bureau has implemented a second checkpoint in its testing procedure where a second analyst checks the results for accuracy.

A Criminal Defense Attorney Can Help

As improper testing of blood alcohol samples happen more often than you think, it is important to have experienced and competent legal representation, if you are accused of DUI. A criminal defense attorney can, among other things, ensure that the evidence against you is untainted, genuine and collected according to proper procedure.