Questions regarding Colorado’s ability to keep up with the flow of DUI blood tests have come to light since the state’s major policy change that could potentially jeopardize cases.
As of July 1, 2019, rather than sending out their blood tests to private labs, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has taken on the workload themselves in their attempt to cut back on spending. Private lab testing costs, at minimum $300, per case. This switch was in attempt to ease financial burdens on the smaller law enforcement agencies and to better collect data regarding marijuana use among motorists. The hope was that the state would be able to gather more information since the smaller agencies who refrained from sending in samples previously due to the cost, would be more likely to send in their data.
In addition to the fear that the CBI will not be able to handle the overflow that would result from the change in policy, there is also concern regarding the effects on the private labs they took work away from.
Back in 2013, when the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment closed its labs due to concerns regarding accuracy, a small private lab called ChemaTox, made its way onto the market and has since handled thousands of cases for the state’s law enforcement. However, when CBI dropped its fees at the start of July, it hit ChemaTox hard. According to its owner Sarah Urfer, the business couldn’t keep up.
“It was never our intention to negatively impact a private business. I’m embarrassed and I’m responsible. Where we failed was to do the stakeholder outreach that I expect our agency to do and I should have done in this case to reach out to ChemaTox,” said John Camper, Director of the CBI.
The loss of business that Urfer and her 25 full-time employees suffered within weeks of the change was significant enough that she felt unable to rebuild, leading her to close within the month.
With one of the labs that handled the workload closed for good, all of the tests that were run by them fell onto the CBI.
As of October of last year, Camper announced that the CBI is doing a good job handling its workload and that they are still operating well within the time limits set for speedy trial requirements. However, it must also be noted that the state budgets that have been sent in by the CBI shows that, while they did not clock in any overtime during the months of June and July, the month of August reported that they worked nearly 160 hours of overtime. Camper has stated that he has no intention of asking the legislature for more funding to handle the workload that has already doubled over the last few months and that they still have open positions to fill that will help to keep the turnaround times low.
Prosecutors are still wary and have warned the CBI that, should the department become overwhelmed, they will have to resort to dropping cases because of the inability of the labs to present evidence that the prosecution needs to move forward. The prosecution uses test results for not only DUI cases, but also cases such as vehicular homicide and murder, and toxicology in its many forms are crucial to such cases. In the case of trial proceedings, the prosecution is also worried about the CBI’s ability to be able to provide experts available for testimony at trial.
Lastly, at the Joint Budget Committee in July, a point was made by State Representative Jonathan Singer (D-Longmont) when it was announced that the CBI would be running a full panel test on every DUI case sample that comes through its doors, regardless of whether or not the sample came in for just alcohol analysis. The reason for the full panel was to gather information about the effects of marijuana use throughout the state. Colorado’s current DUI law is not specific to alcohol or drugs, thus there is a grey area, but the CBI has admitted to the potential for challenges on the practice.
Singer questions the constitutionality of such actions. “If we’re looking for substances that weren’t the initiating or even the secondary reason for an arrest or a charge, are we wandering into any federal constitutional concerns about custody of evidence?”
That definitely sounds like something that could be a concern.
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