SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the I'm-positive-there-are-false-positives dept.
Pro Publica and The New York Times Magazine have each written about field drug testing by U.S. law enforcement agencies. The tests are undertaken with disposable kits containing chemicals. A sample is brought into contact with the chemicals and there may be a colour change, which is assessed by the officer. The essay tells the story of people against whom criminal charges regarding illegal drugs were filed, with the results of these field testing kits as the primary evidence in the prosecutions.
According to the essay, the use of the kits has various pitfalls which can lead to false positive results. For one thing, analytes which are legal to possess can produce the same colour change as illegal substances. For another, poor lighting which may be encountered in the field can distort the officer's perception of colours. Confirmation bias can occur. Also, officers may receive inadequate (or--the submitter supposes--incorrect) training in the interpretation of the colours. A former Houston police chief offered the opinion that
Officers shouldn't collect and test their own evidence, period. I don't care whether that's cocaine, blood, hair.
The essay mentions gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC-MS), an instrumental method which is typically undertaken in a laboratory, as providing more reliable results. The submitter notes that portable GC-MS equipment does exist (1, 2).
Nationwide, 62 percent of forensics labs do not conduct further testing in cases in which a field drug test was used and the defendant made a guilty plea. However, the Houston crime laboratory has been doing such testing. They have found that false positives are commonplace. The district attorney's office for Harris County, Texas, which handles cases from Houston, has been informed about those test results and is undertaking "efforts to overturn wrongful convictions." In three years, about as many such convictions have been overturned in Harris County as in the rest of the United States.
Referenced stories:
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @02:32PM
The answer to the headline seems to be "yes", for once. I blame the editors for not reversing the question. Next time, try "Are drug tests that fill U.S. prisons accurate?" or something :)
Anyway, I wrote a post about this exact thing [soylentnews.org] a few days ago, referencing the NYT article from TFS, so I'll just quote it here:
There was a post about that a week ago on Techdirt, titled Field Drug Tests: The $2 Tool That Can Destroy Lives [techdirt.com], covering a NYT article [nytimes.com] from two weeks ago.
It's mostly about "Amy Albritton, who spent 21 days in jail thanks to a false positive", lost her job, her apartment and furniture (considered abandoned after disappearing for three weeks), now has a felony record (pleaded guilty to get out instead of facing three years in jail - after three weeks in jail, the evidence was still not tested) and can't get a new job (see: felony record).
All that because the cops used a cheap test (that also reacts to a hundred or so legal substances), treated it as definite evidence and locked her up. There are also a few more examples in there.
Down in the comments below the TD article a forensic scientist ("Jessie") popped up, gave a decent explanation about the tests and their unreliability.
The process goes like this:
1) Inadequately trained cops use cheap tests that give dubious results.
2) You get arrested and thrown in jail.
3) It usually takes three or more weeks for a lab to do further tests - if you don't have money for lawyer, you either wait in prison or plead guilty.
- If you wait, you will probably lose your job, your apartment and all your possessions (you've been missing for weeks, after all).
- If you plead guilty, you now have a felony record, with all the perks that gets you!
4) It doesn't really matter if you plead guilty or not, you'll still lose everything. Either you're a felon or you've been missing for weeks!
5) Good luck finding a new job and apartment with that felony record!
6) Profit?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday July 26 2016, @05:22PM
> The answer to the headline seems to be "yes", for once. I blame the editors for not reversing the question.
The law of headlines doesn't apply when the "journalist" uses a CYA question to avoid retribution from powerful beings.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday July 26 2016, @09:08PM
...seriously? You're not "missing" when you're incarcerated. You're incapacitated (I don't mean that in a legal sense). You do get a phone call, and I have to imagine they let you try again on occasion if no one picks up.
Anyone not destitute and with a normal social network should be able to handle being incarcerated for a month without too much trouble. If you're really smart about planning for various types of incapacitation ahead of time, someone you trust has your SDPOA (Statutory Durable Power of Attorney) and can access your bank accounts to pay your rent. If the rent is being paid, no one will notice or care that you're not in the apartment. People take month-long trips, after all.
If you're less smart and no one has your SDPOA, you may need to do one from jail, but ... umm ... you have a lawyer.
If you're even less smart than that and have a reasonable income but no savings ... you dug your own grave.
Now, the woman in question appears to be poor, and to have strained family relations. So, this was harder on her than it would be on most people.
Nevertheless, I read the article, and she made some definite unforced errors:
- Big Fucking Mistake #1: consenting to the search of the car. Never do that. Ever. Don't be intimidated into doing it, either; Supreme Court case law says they can't make you wait for a drug-sniffing dog to arrive.
- Mistake #2: taking the plea deal. Should be obvious.
Now, it sounds like she's had a hard life, and the justice system shouldn't only protect those who know how to assert their rights. It's a sad story. But, for most people on this site, if being laid up for a month causes your entire life to fall apart, you're doing it wrong.