Taryn White

State Crime Labs Paid by DUI Conviction Rate—Is it Fair?

Labs Being Paid for DUI Case Convictions, Not for Acquittals

In a lot of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) cases, the conviction is based on the reliability and accuracy of the breath or blood tests that were administered to the would-be offender. The accuracy of these tests is also dependent on the quality of the state’s crime laboratory—more specifically, the skills and honesty of the technicians working in the lab. It is these technicians who analyze the DUI blood tests as well as check the accuracy and maintain the machines that are used for breath testing.

It is assumed, of course, that the crime lab technicians, who are working for the state government prosecuting the offender, are honest and objective scientists who have no stake in the outcome of the case. This is also the fact that many prosecutors use these labs to reassure a jury of the accuracy of blood and breath tests. While we assume this to be true, it does pose the question – do government crime laboratory technicians have a financial stake in the outcome of DUI cases? When a driver who gets arrested for DUI and searches for DUI lawyers near me to fight the charges, it is important to find a DUI attorney who will look into this possibility.

An article from the Huffington Post posed this same question and, through some research, has uncovered some interesting information regarding the financial stake crime labs may have in DUI cases. According to the article’s author, some crime lab technicians are actually employed by state police agencies, meaning their performance reviews and job assessments are done by prosecutors or police officers, and the technicians are considered a part of the state’s “team.”

Considering the police and prosecutors are looking to these crime labs to prove defendants were driving under the influence, it can be easy to see how even the most honest of crime lab technicians may be swayed to be dishonest in order to protect their job security. Furthermore, a paper found in the Criminal Justice Ethics journal investigates how the criminal justice system actually does incentivize crime lab technicians for wrongful convictions and uncovers how crime labs may be funded.

According to this paper, some crime labs are funded using court-assessed fees, creating another channel in which technicians may become biased when they should be an objective party. With this funding method, the crime lab receives a fee for every conviction of any given type. In some states, offenders themselves are required to pay the lab fees if they are convicted. Given this information, it can be easy to see how crime labs may be swayed to give inaccurate information in order to reach a conviction.

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