California used faulty DUI tests for nearly 10 years, state Justice Department says

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Almost a decade ago, a Simi Valley-based medical supply company began providing the California Department of Justice urinalysis tests for law enforcement agencies around the state that didn’t have local forensic labs to test for alcohol.For most of that time, the test kits Andwin Scientific supplied were faulty, potentially inflating the results of DUI suspects in the heart of California’s wine country and elsewhere, according to a letter state officials sent to Sonoma County prosecutors that was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.As a result, an untold number of criminal cases across California were potentially up for review, with about 60 law enforcement agencies and seven district attorney’s offices informed that cases in their jurisdictions could be affected, a state Justice Department spokesperson said.Generally, urinalysis tests are rarely used to prosecute DUIs.Following an audit by the state, officials told The Times this week, the state Department of Justice determined that only a small number of California’s DUI and other cases involving alcohol analyses — 0.07% — involved the faulty urinalysis tests and needed to be reviewed.

It’s now up to local jurisdictions such as Sonoma County to do a deeper dive and see if anything was missed.Large counties, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orange counties, which have their own labs, were not affected.“We have alerted the impacted agencies so they can conduct their own review of the case information,” state Justice Department officials told The Times in an email.Authorities first learned that the tests were faulty last summer, according to the letter state officials sent Sonoma County.

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