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Thursday, December 27, 2012
By Michael Nichols
Categories: Michael J. Nichols
Michigan Medical Marijuana Attorney Mike Nichols of Lansing is fighting for valid science in the courtroom: not forensic science which is used to advocate to convict people when they may have done nothing wrong. Nichols, an East Lansing resident who has practiced law throughout Michigan for 14 years, recently won a motion to exclude a Michigan State Police blood analysis that claimed an Ohio man had marijuana in his system when he was driving. Nichols says: “what was critical was that the Judge ruled that the lab supervisor could not explain how the test works. The reason why the lab supervisor struggled to explain it is because it’s never been validated at the level of 1 ng/mL. 1 ng/mL is the cut off for reporting the presence of the substance of interest because that is the limit of quantitation that the lab has set administratively without determining it scientifically. It is nearly impossible to distinguish between a false positive and the true presence of the substance of interest at those tiny levels.”
Nichols credits his success in finding out the secrets behind the forensic science to hours that he spent and continues to invest in learning the science, including a week in Chicago at Axion Labs for the gas chromatography/mass spectrometry hands on training, as well as the astute experts who have testified effectively on the science issues.
“One thing that I learned is that you have to ‘prove it before you can use it,’’ says Nichols. He adds “labs have to show that they understand the method used to analyze things like human blood and also the levels at which the method is valid or subject to a high probability of a false positive.” Nichols will teach a forensic evidence course at Thomas M Cooley Law School’s Lansing campus and also teaches DUI Law and Practice at Cooley. He is the author of the OWI Handbook for West Publishing and co-authored another chapter on science in DUI (including driving under the influence of drugs) called “DUI Mathematics.” Mike Nichols can be reached at his East Lansing office at 517.432.9000 or mnichols@nicholslaw.net