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Monday, June 11, 2012
By Michael Nichols
Categories: Drunk-Driving
East Lansing drunk driving attorney Mike Nichols helped reveal some flaws in the way the Michigan State Police lab analysis blood for alcohol content and concentration. "I am happy that the lab is taking a look at revamping its policy," Nichols said after hearing a formal announcement by a lab supervisor on Friday June 8, 2012.
The lab was forced to start analyzing the sources of uncertainty in its measurement of blood alcohol as a result of new standards in forensic science that Nichols pushed to have brought to Michigan in a case in Mason County in 2010. See May 2011 In The News article: District Judge Rules That The Michigan State Police Do Not Use Reliable Blood Alcohol Testing Procedures by Michael J. Nichols. "The problem," Nichols says, "is that the former drug toxicology supervisor threw together a cut and paste 'uncertainty budget' from a microsoft excel spreadsheet that she was given by an instructor at the Society of Forensic Toxicoloy." Nichols adds: "it was not thought out at all and it even included mathematical errors."
The lab's administrative staff also created an uncertainty protocol in early 2011 that is now on-line: see attached. That protocol is going to undergo revision based on questions posed for the past 18 months by East Lansing drunk driving attorney Mike Nichols, who practices heavily in Charlotte, Jackson, Lansing, East Lansing and St. Johns.
Nichols says "I am pleased that the lab staff is at least thinking about these issues and willing to recognize the pitfalls of its current uncertainty protocol and resulting budgets." The lab staff advised a group of attendees of the state bar of Michigan Criminal Law Section annual conference that it will be a few weeks before a new protocol for uncertainty analysis will be on-line. In the meantime, the staff of the Lansing lab will not provide the uncertainty declarations.
"We will see the degree to which they improve and control the uncertainty sources in the revised protocol and the budgets that come from it," says Nichols. Nichols adds: "but I cannot help but wonder how many people are convicted wrongfully by a non-scientific blood alcohol report and how many people have cases pending and they are about to plead guilty because neither they, nor their lawyers, know better." For a lawyer dedicated to the law and science of drunk driving and drugged driving defense call Mike Nichols at 517.432.9000 or e-mail mnichols@nicholslaw.net