Colorimetric drug tests not reliable

The Satellite
21

To be clear, most prosecutors did not present these cases without lab tests. How they screen these cases is opaque. I suspect but have no evidence to support that they filter some cases out based on lack of lab testing.

The same held true for he said - she said domestic assault cases. No eye witness, no physical evidence, no recording, just accusations does not constitute probable cause. Again, most prosecutors didn’t bring these to us and when they did it was usually due to oversight due to the volume of cases.

With a couple of exceptions, the Harris County’s prosecutors who presented cases to our jury were excellent and IMO honest and impartial.

After jury selection on the first day, we had no contact or communication with the presiding judge. (She was an absolute moron and was unable to manage the selection process without heavy assistance).

Finally, you might think that we were a soft jury but that is wrong. When probable cause was established for an offense, we indicted. This occurred ~98% of the time. We followed the law and did our best to be impartial. In fact, on a couple of occasions we ordered investigations to be performed and deposed defendants and hostile witnesses face to face.

The things we saw were shocking and eye opening, even to a 60+ year old man who grew up between Denver Harbor and Northshore. There are evil people in our county.

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22

Again, that’s only a portion of their practice. They show up for our dockets 2 or 3 days per month, and have a trial or contested hearing every now and then.

And I’ve seen those guys get better results in court that some of Houston’s biggest private criminal defense names. True “hired guns.”

As coogman91 says…I’VE LIVED IT.

Over $5K per month is damn good money for what is, in many cases, only a few days in court per month, not that they aren’t doing plenty of work outside of court on those cases as well, as any attorney would.

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23

Where I worked, there was no contract. An appointment came up, and the judge assigned it to an attorney. Any attorney who appeared in his court was subject to receiving an assignment, and it wasn’t voluntary, though he assigned more to local attorneys than those from out-of-town. On top of the felony appointments, we had ad litem (CPS and others) appointments, misdemeanors and juvenile cases (including truancy garbage.)

That same judge decided unilaterally how much to pay the attorney. He often decided to pay less than $20/hr., and you never knew what he would allow until after the fact. He would never pay for legal research or interviewing witnesses, except on a limited basis where a case went to trial.

These cases were a HUGE burden on local attorneys, and the whole scheme was designed to force plea bargains so that the county could keep their probation coffers full. Trying to maintain a practice in the face of incurring what was essentially forced pro bono work that ate up a significant part of every week.

The burden of getting a second drug test to counter the state’s flawed test used for an indictment would have come at the expense of the appointed defense attorney, with no guarantee of reimbursement.

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24

As for he says/she says, a lot of sexual assaults (child and adult) are like that.

VERY RARELY is there an eyewitness account other than that of the alleged victim/complainant.

Sexual assailants generally don’t do their deeds in public out of fear of getting observed and caught. They generally get their victims alone and leave no outside eyewitnesses.

Guess what? That CAN be enough to legally convict (or not). Let me give you a few real life examples.

A few years back we had a case of “Continuous Sexual Assault of a Child” resulting from an outcry literally a decade or more after the fact from a Stepdaughter against a Stepdad. Obviously, at that point, there was no DNA evidence, no third party eyewitnesses, no forensic (SANE) exam or photographs, physical evidence, or any other circumstantial evidence…basically just the victim’s testimony. In that case, the defendant took the stand in his own defense (not sure that was a good idea; he had the right to remain silent, and not be a witness against himself).

Pretty much a he says vs she says case if ever there was one.

Even the girl’s bio Mom didn’t believe her over her husband/the accused stepdad. She believed her husband, and as a result, that young lady has become estranged from her Mom and step siblings, and hasn’t spoken to any of them since.

Guess what?

That guy was convicted and got 40 years from the jury.

It’s up on appeal, but given that American law is a “one witness rule” system (it ain’t like Sharia law, where you need three eyewitnesses (ideally all Muslims) to convict), meaning if a jury believes the testimony of one witness beyond a reasonable doubt on all elements of the offense, which they did in this case, a conviction can occur that won’t be easy to reverse in such cases.

Fast forward just a bit.

Only a month or two later…we had another sexual assault of a child trial, again, alleged stepdad against complainant stepdaughter.

In that case, we had a Mom walking in on the stepdad in the act and testifying in court against him, DNA evidence (the stepdad’s DNA was found on the alleged victim’s privates), a timely SANE exam (and as I recall, the examining nurse testified; the statements of the complainant to the nurse get in as an exception to the hearsay rule) and an immediate outcry from the victim, who took the stand at trial as well.

Guess what?

That guy was ACQUITTED (seriously!!!).

Ya never know who a jury will believe, and what a jury is going to do.

Consider traffic ticket trials.

They are nearly always he says vs. he/she/they says/say. Basically cop vs driver.

Guess what? The state wins MOST (though certainly not all) of those trials.

25

Weird system.

Glad we aren’t that county.

All the rural counties around here have either contracted criminal defense attorneys who do all the indigent appointments, OR (as in the case of Brazos County, which is a bit larger) a public defender’s office.

And based on what I’ve seen, I am NOT prepared to say that those public defenders, whether county employees or contractors, are worse than high paid private defense attorneys, much less that a person that can’t hire a private attorney is at a disadvantage if they get appointed one of those people.

We definitely haven’t experienced anything to that effect when the cases get to trial, that’s for sure.

26

Agree with you. Does the court pay the defendant damages when the court makes a mistake to indict someone and they are found not guilty?

27

The court shouldn’t - they didn’t make the decision to pursue indictments based on unreliable tests. If you put the DA’s office and their county taxpayers on the hook for something like that, you can be assured that the DA would be more selective in pursuing those cases or they would find more reliable tests. These tests are used because they’re cheap.

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28

Then who should pay damages for ruining someone’s character? Who does?

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29

I already answered that.

But the question is whether you as a taxpayer would be on board with your money going to reimburse defendants who are not convicted. That could get really expensive.

30

It is not about being expensive but to have a proper judicial system. You destroy someone’s character/reputation? I sure hope the court pays its dues to the defendant. Courts need to do their job. There should not be any argument about it. At the same time when multiple offenders go free we all know some are not doing their job and society suffers.

31

So you aren’t going to address the very simple question.

There’s a cost associated with reimbursing defendants who aren’t convicted. Your county and/or state would bear that cost. Do you support sending your tax dollars to these defendants for actual and reputational damages?

“The court” did its job by ensuring a fair trial. “The court” didn’t bring the indictment.

32

They did not their job if the they used colorimetric. That is pretty evident if it is not reliable. As far as damages? The court has to have a fund especially for that reason. Before you ask any of that first as what each tax earned go to.

33

This is silly. You clearly don’t understand how this works and aren’t interested in learning. Good luck.

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34

Dully noted.