In Pennsylvania DUI cases, blood testing evidence holds a place of great importance because its results are normally seen as accurate and scientific. Prosecutors think that blood evidence is without flaw. This is far from true. In this series, Challenging DUI Blood Evidence, we offer a simple yet comprehensive look at blood testing in DUI…
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Challenging DUI Blood Evidence Part 2: How Blood is Tested
In our on-going series on DUI blood testing, we aim to educate our readers to help them understand the evidence collected against them. Today we examine How Blood is Tested for DUI Cases. When it comes to blood testing for DUI cases they come in two types and then sub-types. The first category depends upon…
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Challenging DUI Blood Evidence Part 1: Introduction
In my years as a PA DUI Attorney, I have learned that the ability to challenge DUI blood evidence is a vital skill that can help win many cases. This is because there is a common myth that DUI blood testing is accurate and precise. Prosecutors treat it as if it is the “Holy Grail…
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Attorney McShane Co-writes Amicus in Supreme Court Win
The Supreme Court Announces its Decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico in Favor of the Petitioner The Supreme Court of the United States has reversed the decision in the case of Bullcoming v. New Mexico siding with the argument that the prosecution using a surrogate forensic analyst who was not involved in the actual testing…
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Pennsylvania DUI Lawyer Attends ACS Chromatography Training
Recently the American Chemical Society (ACS) held a five day intensive course on Gas Chromatography (GC). Gas Chromatography is used for DUI blood testing right here in Pennsylvania and around the country. Any DUI lawyer worth his/her salt should be well versed in how Gas Chromatography works and how it can yield erroneously high blood…
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DUI Blood Testing Review
I have blogged a lot on Blood Testing for DUI and specifically Gas Chromatography for alcohol (ETOH) or drugs of abuse testing used in DUI prosecutions. Some people ask: Justin, your posts are so hyper-technical, why do you post such detailed stuff? When you are facing a Pennsylvania DUI, possible consequences include jail time,…
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When tall and skinny is always beautiful? Fundamental principles of gas chromatography
It is true. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Every year they have the world’s ugliest dog contest where invariably the reporters report on this event and blast the picture of the world’s ugliest dog all over the internet. Invariably comments come from all across the world that the dog isn’t…
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How do they make the squiggly lines turn into a magic number: Area under the peak
One of the aspects of my job that I really enjoy is explaining the science of Blood Alcohol Concentration and/or reported levels of Drugs of Abuse to normal everyday folks, judges, jurors, prosecutors and even fellow attorneys. One of the most common questions I get asked is in the area of gas chromatography. Just yesterday…
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Internal standard the likely culprit for inaccurate BAC results
OK so you followed our recent series on the Carry-Over Effect problem that can lead to inaccurate Blood Alcohol Content results in the posts: A large problem in Gas Chromatography: No uniform standard for GC run position or composition The Carry-over Effect: Lack of Blanks between tests leads to false positive or inflated BAC results…
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In analytical chemistry for ETOH and Drugs of Abuse determination, it is very true that the matrix is all around us but truly is ignored
Keanu Reeves in the movie The Matrix noted that the matrix is all around us, you just haven’t chosen to see it. He had no idea that his statement would hold true in analytical testing for ETOH and drugs of abuse testing in DUI prosecution as well. The matrix is the substrate form which we…
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