Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Supreme Court Weighs in on Nonconsensual, Warrantless Blood Draws in DWI Cases « North Carolina Criminal Law

Supreme Court Weighs in on Nonconsensual, Warrantless Blood Draws in DWI Cases « North Carolina Criminal Law

This is a clear example of how little is known @ toxicology..specifically blood analysis…A blood draw will ALWAYS yield a higher BAC than the breathalyzer…a few hrs delay makes little difference in the end result if determination of impairment is based on a blood draw…
When the blood is drawn for drug analysis the situation is much worse due to lack of education of the law/judicial system concerning the kinetics of metabolism..Alcohol is first order kinetics…what goes in comes out…Drugs (legal prescriptions including non-narcotics) are broken down by the liver thus leaving metabolites in the blood long after the defendant may have been impaired…per example…Methadone metabolites have a half-life of apx. 54 hours…which means someone who legally takes this drug on Monday can be charged with DWI on Thursday or Friday….It’s more complicated than this and I do not condone impaired driving…The defendant can rarely afford a toxicologist to explain this in court and few attorneys are also toxicologist…Drug recognition experts (DRE’s) are law enforcement officers trained to detect what drugs a defendant has taken without a blood draw…basically a DRE has a high-school diploma and less than 40 hrs training…Experts?? I think not…