Mr. H., a young man in the Marine Corps, came to our office with a difficult case.  His case involved a second time DUI, with an accident, and a blood alcohol level of 0.27% BAC.  The District Attorney initially offered 120 days in Orange County Jail, with no alternative sentencing (weekends, house arrest, community service, etc.,) allowed.  The situation looked grim for the client, but we got to work.

After a thorough investigation, including visiting the scene of the arrest, interviewing the persons he was drinking with, and attempting to obtain the blood vial for a re-test of his blood, we learned an important fact:

The client’s blood had been lost, or mixed up, by the forensic toxicology unit of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.  Two labels for another defendant, with a similar name, had been printed, but they could find no test with the client’s name.   Because the other vials were at or near a .08% BAC (the legal limit), it was a mystery to the investigator at the forensics lab what happened to the vial.  In fact, the forensics lab pointed out, the client actually did very, very well on the field sobriety tests, making it actually unlikely that the client was a 0.27% BAC. 

Had no one ever investigated the blood test, that test would have been assumed correct.  But instead, our client had the benefit of our hard work, and had his DUI charges dismissed, and suffered no jail time.

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