Former US attorney is 8th sober driver to be arrested for DUI by state trooper

August 29, 2025, 02:11 PM

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Originally posted by 92fstech:
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Originally posted by Loswsmith:
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Originally posted by IntrepidTraveler:
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Originally posted by 92fstech:
... You have to do a blood draw, and the results take months to come back...

Why is this? I go in for my annual physical and have a blood draw at 9AM. Results are trickling in at the end of the day, next day at the latest.

At least in Washington it's the allocation of resources. The Legislature doesn't care about the delay. And the "months" is somewhere between 8-12 months depending on whatever the Washington State Patrol Toxicologist is doing.

Lawyer shit. It has to go to a certified lab. Yes, the hospital could tell you in 20 minutes (were it not for HIPAA), but that's not good enough for the courts. We have to send it to the state lab, and it takes forever. I got some results earlier this month from a sample that I submitted in February.

Believe me, I hate it too. For alcohol OWIs I always prefer the certified breath test because the results are immediate. But that machine doesn't work for drugs, or drunks who can't provide a sample or refuse consent.

Actually, in WA the legislature has indicated that the only entity that is allowed to test breath or blood for the ".08 limit" is the Washington State Toxicologist out of the Washington State Patrol. So the courts have nothing to do with it, except that the legislature thinks it knows what they are doing better than the courts and don't want to allocate resources, which is why there is a tremendous backlog.

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August 29, 2025, 02:42 PM

92fstech

Legislators, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys...it's all "lawyer shit" to me. They all affect one part of the process or another through pushing paper.

I don't believe the state lab is mandated by statute here. We used to send ours to a private lab that would get results back in weeks instead of months, but they stopped doing it so now they go to the state lab and the wait is 4-5x as long. It doesn't make a bit of difference to the initial arrest, though, because either way we don't have immediate certified results.