PROSECUTORS DEFEND CRIME LAB PRACTICES.Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer Prosecutors on Thursday downplayed the problems at the Ventura County sheriff's crime lab, saying technical glitches made under trying circumstances do not justify dismissing 600 drunk driving cases. Deputy District Attorney Lisa Lee said it was human error, not a flagrant fla·grant adj. 1. Conspicuously bad, offensive, or reprehensible: a flagrant miscarriage of justice; flagrant cases of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government. See Usage Note at blatant. 2. disregard for the law, that led a lab technician to overstate the alcohol level in 80 percent of tests done on suspects between November and March. ``Science isn't subjective, but it isn't pinpoint perfect either,'' Lee said. ``That's not to say that close enough is good enough, but it's not, as the defense would have you believe, that there were all these errors going on at the lab.'' After two weeks of hearings that ended with the prosecution's closing arguments Thursday, Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren indicated that he expects to issue a written ruling within two weeks. Perren's ruling could affect 600 drunk driving cases, some of which are pending while others already have been resolved through guilty pleas. For five months, defense attorneys have been trying to have the cases dismissed, arguing that lab officials were negligent negligent adj., adv. careless in not fulfilling responsibility. (See: negligence) in allowing an unqualified technician, Vincent Vitale, to do blood and urine tests after the lab's top alcohol scientist, Norm Fort, retired in November 1996. Defense lawyers also claim that after Vitale's mistakes were caught in mid-March, the lab continued to do breath testing in defiance Defiance, city (1990 pop. 16,768), seat of Defiance co., NW Ohio, at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee rivers, in a farm area; settled 1790, inc. 1836. Its manufactures include machinery and food, fabricated-metal, and glass products. Gen. of a state order to cease all alcohol tests so the lab's problems could be remedied. Lee disputed those claims, saying the lab was under no obligation to cease breath testing because the state Department of Health Services Department of Health Services may refer to:
Besides being vague, this March 19 directive was merely advisory, she said, adding that the state Attorney General's Office told the Health Services health services Managed care The benefits covered under a health contract Department in May that it could not forbid for·bid tr.v. for·bade or for·bad , for·bid·den or for·bid, for·bid·ding, for·bids 1. To command (someone) not to do something: I forbid you to go. 2. the lab from doing those tests. Prosecutors described the Department of Health Services as overly bureaucratic bu·reau·crat n. 1. An official of a bureaucracy. 2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure. bu , difficult to work with, and slow to respond to the lab's efforts to change or update its methods. Deputy District Attorney Pete Kossoris said the Department of Health Services wasted time in approving Dea Boehme as Fort's replacement, thus unnecessarily leaving the lab out of compliance with state law that mandates at least one forensic alcohol supervisor on staff. Kossoris faulted Fort for resigning on three days' notice, calling him a ``jealous, protective'' man who insisted on being the only forensic alcohol supervisor and who quit because of a longstanding feud feud, formalized private warfare, especially between family groups. The blood feud (see vendetta) is characteristic of those societies in which central government either has not arisen or has decayed. with a lab manager, sheriff's Capt. Leslie Warren. Vitale, the technician, also came under fire for his sloppy slop·py adj. slop·pi·er, slop·pi·est 1. Marked by a lack of neatness or order; untidy: a sloppy room. 2. tests, but Kossoris said the lab had little choice but to put him in charge of the alcohol unit after Fort's unexpected retirement. As for Vitale's inflated results on 274 blood and urine alcohol tests, Kossoris said most of the results were only .01 percent or .02 percent off, whereas the legal limit to drive in California is .08 percent. ``Many of those results, I would suggest, aren't all that great, aren't all that significant,'' said Kossoris. 
L. Rat (Member): Fort was not the only person to leave the lab at this time - corruption & federal lawsuit 2/27/2008 7:18 PM
Others at the VCSD crime lab left before and soon after a request from the DA's office to lie under oath about ballistics and other evidence. Vitale (And possibly others who left the lab around this time) refused to lie, and was moved to a position where he was not trained in 30+ years, which his superiors and the county were well aware. Vitale later successfully sued the county in federal court, yet the details were under a gag order. When the DA's office requested a lie from the sheriff's crime lab, then took retaliatory action against those who would not, they set off a fuse they couldn't stop. Defense attorneys looked at this as a way to get their clients freed. What is not stated is that it was routine for another lab to test the same blood and urine alcohol levels, thus there were other records available for any appeals or re-trials. |
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