As far as checks and balances goes for DUI arrests, there is absolutely no motivation for the Police in regards to financial gain by switching blood or putting a different name on it and re-submitting it. In addition, the impounding procedure is so specific that there is no way you could duplicate vials and not get caught b/c of serial numbers and inventory records. AZ has a law that can force the drunk to pay for the costs incurred during their jail stay, but it is not enforced usually.
Where there is a will there is a way. You are way too trusting Uncle Sam and his minions. The more complicated the procedure the easier it is to screw up. Given time people get lazy, sloppy and overconfident. I guarantee you I could find flaws in the system.
If there systems are so perfect, how did this happen:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2003/03/16/856/52154
http://blog.kir.com/archives/000989.asp
"Houston Crime Lab scandal hits the NY Times You know that a local scandal has hit the big-time when the New York Times finally notices it.
This NY Times article reports on the embarrassing scandal involving Houston's Crime Laboratory, which was already relling from the requirement that it retest evidence that it provided in 360 cases, now faces a much larger crisis that could involve many thousands of cases over 25 years. In a report to be filed in a Houston state court on Thursday, six independent forensic scientists said that a crime laboratory officials -- because they either lacked basic knowledge of blood typing or gave false testimony -- may have offered "false and scientifically unsound" reports and testimony in thousands of criminal cases. The panel called for a comprehensive audit spanning decades to re-examine the results of a broad array of rudimentary tests on blood, semen and other bodily fluids."
Or this one:
"Houston Crime Lab Scandal: After DNA Proves Innocence By
Jeralyn, Section
Innocence Cases
Posted on Sun Mar 16, 2003 at 09:44:03 AM EST
"For Josiah Sutton, the Houston man released from prison last week after DNA tests concluded he could not have been the rapist prosecutors said he was, there would be no more football heroics, no prom or graduation, no shot at a gridiron scholarship. But thanks to the momentum to reopen old criminal cases, generated by a
burgeoning scandal in the Houston Police Department crime lab, there may be a future."
Josiah's story is one we are hearing far too often.
Sutton was arrested Oct. 30, 1998, five days after a woman had been taken at gunpoint from her southwest Houston apartment, raped by two attackers and dumped in a field in Fort Bend County. Sutton, who was 16 at the time, was walking down the street with a friend when the woman, driving past in her car, identified them as her assailants. She would later testify that she recognized them by their hats, which looked like the ones worn by the men who raped her.
Once charged with kidnapping and rape, Sutton and his friend submitted saliva and blood for comparison to material recovered from the attack. DNA tests conducted by the now-discredited HPD lab ruled out Sutton's friend as one of the rapists but included him.
At his trial, an HPD analyst testified that DNA from the rape was an exact match for Sutton, who turned 17 in jail while awaiting trial. But new tests of the samples have found the DNA of two unidentified men, neither of whom could be Sutton.
At 17, here are some of the things he witnessed and had to learn to be prepared to defend himself against, according to his mother, Carol Batie:
In the early months of his incarceration, Sutton faced a difficult adjustment to the Clemens Unit in Brazoria. "This was a (teenager) physically defending himself against men," Batie said. "He witnessed another inmate getting his throat slashed. He saw the guy lying on the ground kicking, dying before his eyes.
"He saw another prisoner die after he was thrown over a railing. These are not things my child should have been watching."
Sutton served 4 1/2 years before being released last week. He had been captain of his high school football team and on his way to earning a football scholarship for college when he was arrested. He had attracted the interest of college scouts in his sophomore year. What's ahead for him now?
Sutton, who already has a GED, wants to go to school. He would like to revive an old talent that earned the family extra cash when he was a teen, cutting hair, and may one day open his own barbershop. After he walked out of the jail, Sutton declared, "I am looking for success, period."
The Houston Chronicle has
full and excellent coverage the Houston crime lab scandal, including today, an article about a
prosecutor's shaken faith in the system, and another on the
increased use and precision of DNA testing ."
:flamemad:
