A major audit by the California Department of Justice has flagged nearly 100 urine samples across Northern California that may have produced false-positive alcohol results.
According to the Press Democrat, the issue stems from a manufacturing flaw in testing kits provided by a Simi Valley company, which lacked enough preservative to stop samples from fermenting and artificially raising alcohol levels.
In Sonoma County, nine court cases have been directly linked to the tainted tests, most of them involving DUI charges. Public Defender Brian Morris warns that these findings put the integrity of nearly a decade of convictions in serious doubt as his office begins a full review.
District attorneys in Marin, Napa, and Mendocino counties are also scrambling to identify which of their cases may be affected by the flawed evidence.