Mimi Coffey | Attorney at Law

Where do I begin? Judges, jurors, district attorneys, cops, MADD? Let's start where it belongs: the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA). Back in 1977, the government gave NHTSA a grant to create some roadside tests for DWI arrests. Dr. Marcelline Burns, who holds a Ph.D in psychology was given carte blanche authority on this project. She came up with the field tests we know today. Her research was so bad (flunking on both the validity and reliability scales researchers measure tests against), that she reattempted her same research in 1981 with the same scientifically unacceptable results. This time she refused to release the validity data. Same story- when the feds lowered the legal limit from .10 to .08 she conducted three "studies" (San Diego, Colorado, and Florida) in an attempt to justify her tests to the lower legal limit. It was such a massive failure she refused to release the validity or reliability data. Federal judge Grimm in an exhaustive review...

The Texas Department of Public Safety laboratory in Houston was responsible for thousands of botched results (some completely fraudulent) because of lab analyst Jonathan Salvador. This occurred from 2006-2012. The Texas Forensic Commission got wind of his questionable work and launched an investigation. One of the commissioners in the investigation, Dr. Nizam Peerwani concluded that the Texas Department of Public Safety lab's office "tolerated under-performance". So this was not just a problem from the analyst, but the whole lab shared culpability. Rather than properly address the problems after this scandal in order to improve testing, Texas DPS convinced our legislators to restricting test results in court only to them. Hence, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure 38.35 was enacted that restricts test results admitted to court to be limited to those of a lab with the Texas DPS certification. Laboratories like Max Courtney's was shut down immediately. Max Courtney...