Crime lab error led to incorrect blood alcohol levels in hundreds of DUII cases

The faulty equipment affected 652 cases in Oregon, according to a June 17 email to law enforcement agencies around the state from Brian Medlock, the director of the Oregon State Police forensic services division.

“This letter is to inform you of a number of analytical reports that contained incorrect blood alcohol values for work performed from July 14, 2020, through March 22, 2022,” Medlock wrote.

Medlock said on March 22, OSP employees identified an error in the calibration of an instrument in the Portland crime laboratory. The calibration error was corrected the next day.

According to the email, all casework that utilized the Portland instrument between July 14, 2020, and March 22, 2022, was reprocessed by OSP using the correct calibration parameters.

All cases analyzed after March 23 are unaffected, Medlock wrote.

In Deschutes County, two of the 652 cases were flagged as having incorrect results, according to the Deschutes County District Attorney’s office.

One is a Bend Police case with a blood alcohol level originally tested at 0.147%, and that was adjusted to 0.146%. The other instance was a medical examiner’s investigation where the blood alcohol level was originally 0.294% and was adjusted to 0.292%.

Every other local blood alcohol level reading was erroneously low by 0.001 or 0.002%.

So far, no known defendant in Deschutes County has filed a motion to undo a DUII conviction, District Attorney John Hummel told The Bulletin.

“I’m aware of the issue, and we are addressing it,” Hummel said. “Fortunately, the vast majority of erroneous results were lower than the person’s actual blood alcohol level.”

Bend defense attorney and DUII specialist Bryan Donahue said some of Medlock’s wording minimizes the problem of inaccurate test results.

“I think the concerning thing about this is, this was going on for almost two years?” Donahue said. “That’s so many cases.”

Donahue said his office received a notice from OSP that the agency now sends its drug testing blood samples to NMS Labs in Pennsylvania. And he’s been told OSP now conducts its alcohol blood testing at its lab in Springfield instead of Portland.

Donahue said even if the method is correct, even a simple device like a scale will produce an incorrect measurement if not properly calibrated.

“These forensic toxicologists come into court and they testify that their method of analysis is the quote-unquote Gold Standard of analysis,” Donahue said. “But I think that we’re finding there’s a lot of tarnish on that gold.”