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#167 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Roadside Drug Test Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: You're sitting in the passenger seat of your car, staring
0:03
Speaker 1: out the window. Your boyfriend is driving, and you look
0:07
Speaker 1: over at him. You can tell that he's getting tired.
0:10
Speaker 1: It's been a long day. You left Louisiana five hours
0:14
Speaker 1: ago and he's been driving the entire time. You're going
0:18
Speaker 1: to Houston, where he has an interview for a job
0:21
Speaker 1: on an oil rig. You find the monotony of the
0:24
Speaker 1: drive to be somewhat calming. It's a big difference from
0:28
Speaker 1: your usual day to day of running around doing your
0:31
Speaker 1: job and taking care of your teenage son who has
0:34
Speaker 1: special needs. Of course, you love your kids and your
0:38
Speaker 1: job is great, but for the first time in a while,
0:42
Speaker 1: you feel yourself really relaxing, and you're happy to have
0:46
Speaker 1: nothing to do or worry about for the next couple
0:48
Speaker 1: of days. When you finally get to the motel in Houston,
0:52
Speaker 1: you're both exhausted. You dump your suitcases at the foot
0:56
Speaker 1: of the bed, and you're tempted to skip dinner and
0:59
Speaker 1: just stay in for the rest of the night, but
1:02
Speaker 1: you don't want your boyfriend to go to bed on
1:04
Speaker 1: an empty stomach, so you both get back in the car,
1:08
Speaker 1: grab some hamburgers from a fast food drive through and
1:11
Speaker 1: then start heading straight back to the motel. Your boyfriend
1:16
Speaker 1: rubs his eyes when he changes lanes, and out of
1:20
Speaker 1: nowhere you see blue and red lights flashing behind your
1:24
Speaker 1: car and a siren blaring. You look up and watch
1:38
Speaker 1: in the rear view mirror as a police officer slowly
1:41
Speaker 1: walks up to the driver's side window. License some registration.
1:48
Speaker 1: You rummage in the glove compartment for the registration. Well,
1:51
Speaker 1: what's the problem, officer, your boyfriend asks, no signal wall
1:56
Speaker 1: changing lanes, You hand the registration to your boyfriend, who
2:00
Speaker 1: in turn hands it to the officer. License. The officer says, again,
2:06
Speaker 1: Your boyfriend holds tight onto the steering wheel. I don't
2:13
Speaker 1: have a license, sir. Please step out of the vehicle.
2:18
Speaker 1: Your boyfriend gets out, closing the door behind him. The
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Speaker 1: officer sticks his head into the car window and looks around.
2:26
Speaker 1: He never makes eye contact with you. Then the officer
2:30
Speaker 1: steps away from your car and calls out to his partner,
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Speaker 1: who's sitting in the police car. There's a needle in here,
2:37
Speaker 1: the officer says, excuse me, what are you talking about.
2:44
Speaker 1: You have no idea what the officer thinks he saw,
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Speaker 1: but you certainly did not have any kind of needle
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Speaker 1: in your car. The cop ignores your question and walks
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Speaker 1: over to the passenger window. Ma'am, I'm gonna need your
2:59
Speaker 1: consent to sirch the car, and I'll tell you right now.
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Speaker 1: You don't consent, we're gonna be sitting here a long
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Speaker 1: time until we can get a canine out here to
3:07
Speaker 1: sweep the car. You don't have anything to hide, so
3:11
Speaker 1: you say, yeah, okay, go ahead. You stand on the
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Speaker 1: side of the road with your boyfriend in the thick
3:17
Speaker 1: Texas heat while both officers search the car. A few
3:21
Speaker 1: minutes later, the first officer stands up straight. It looks
3:25
Speaker 1: like he's pinching something between his index finger and his thumb,
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Speaker 1: and he's holding it up to the moonlight. You can't
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Speaker 1: see what it is, but you see that. The officer
3:35
Speaker 1: says something to his partner, who then comes over to you. Man,
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Speaker 1: we have reason to believe that there's crack cocaine in
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Speaker 1: your car, the officer says. He tells you both to
3:47
Speaker 1: put your hands behind your back. He starts cuffing your
3:51
Speaker 1: boyfriend and you're adrenaline starts pumping. You're sweating now and
3:56
Speaker 1: you can't tell if it's the ninety degree heat or
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Speaker 1: if it's pure nerves and anxiety. As the officer tightens
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Speaker 1: the cuffs painfully around your wrist, you have the wrong
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Speaker 1: idea here. I don't have drugs in my car. I
4:10
Speaker 1: don't do drugs. I've never done drugs. One officer walks
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Speaker 1: over to you and then takes you to the police car.
4:19
Speaker 1: The other one opens up the trunk. He takes out
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Speaker 1: something that looks like a zip lock baggie, then walks
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Speaker 1: back over to you. He opens the bag and pulls
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Speaker 1: out a test tube. Then he takes what he's been
4:32
Speaker 1: pinching between his fingers and drops it into the tube.
4:35
Speaker 1: He shakes it around, looks at it. Then he looks
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Speaker 1: at you, and a wide grin creeps across his face.
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Speaker 1: He waves the tube right in front of your nose.
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Speaker 1: A liquid that seems to change from red to blue
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Speaker 1: and the flashing lights is dangled in front of you.
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Speaker 1: You're busted, ma'am, the cop says. The take you to jail.
5:01
Speaker 1: Your boyfriend is charged with driving without a license and
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Speaker 1: is released soon after. But you don't know that yet
5:08
Speaker 1: because you're placed in a tiny holding cell with one
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Speaker 1: other woman who tells you that she murdered someone. You're
5:15
Speaker 1: feeling sick, and you still haven't eaten all day. You're terrified,
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Speaker 1: but you're not just worried about yourself. You're really worried
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Speaker 1: about your son. Someone calls your name from a thick
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Speaker 1: plastic window that separates you from the people working at
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Speaker 1: the jail. You walk up to the window and see
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Speaker 1: a tired looking man on the other side. He introduces
5:41
Speaker 1: himself as the court appointed defense attorney. He tells you
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Speaker 1: you're being charged for possession of crack cocaine. Look, this
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Speaker 1: is a felony, he says, and you're facing two years
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Speaker 1: in stay prison. You're in disbelief. Jesus, how is this possible.
6:01
Speaker 1: The attorney looks down at his papers and says, look,
6:04
Speaker 1: you have a choice. It's not much of a choice,
6:07
Speaker 1: but you do have a choice. The prosecutor is offering
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Speaker 1: you a plea deal. If you plead guilty, you'll get
6:13
Speaker 1: a forty five day sentence in jail, and you'll probably
6:16
Speaker 1: only have to serve half of that. You say, I'm innocent.
6:21
Speaker 1: I'm not going to plead guilty to something I didn't do.
6:25
Speaker 1: The defense attorney kind of leans in a little bit
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Speaker 1: and looks at you through his wire rim glasses and says, ma'am.
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Speaker 1: They tested the substance they found on the floor of
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Speaker 1: your car and it came up positive for crack cocaine.
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Speaker 1: So according to this test, there was crack in your car.
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Speaker 1: Now you can wait until the forensics lab runs another
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Speaker 1: test on it, but there's a huge backlog. You could
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Speaker 1: wait months for that test to come back. You begin
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Speaker 1: to physically shake. You're on the verge of bursting out
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Speaker 1: in tears right there in the middle of the jail.
7:02
Speaker 1: You think about your options. Months in jail, waiting for
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Speaker 1: the evidence that will prove your innocent, two years in
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Speaker 1: prison if it doesn't, And can you even trust the
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Speaker 1: test if the one that they did on the side
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Speaker 1: of the road was clearly wrong. I mean there was
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Speaker 1: no crack in your car. You think about your youngest
7:22
Speaker 1: son and you're terrified of what's going to happen if
7:25
Speaker 1: you can't get out of your fast. He really needs you.
7:30
Speaker 1: You work managing an apartment complex. Part of your compensation
7:34
Speaker 1: is that you get to live in an apartment in
7:36
Speaker 1: the building that you manage. It at least allows you
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Speaker 1: to stay close to your son at all times. Right now,
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Speaker 1: he's with his dad. But if you're stuck here for months,
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Speaker 1: or god forpid years, you'll lose your job, your home,
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Speaker 1: the safety net for you and your kid. The decision
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Speaker 1: is basically made for you. You can't sit in prison
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Speaker 1: for months. You have to get out and get out
8:01
Speaker 1: as quickly as you can. The next thing you know,
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Speaker 1: you're standing in front of a judge. You can't stop trembling,
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Speaker 1: You're weeping uncontrollably, you can barely breathe. Somehow, when the
8:17
Speaker 1: judge asks you, how do you plead, you force out
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Speaker 1: the words I plead guilty. They take you back to
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Speaker 1: a cell where you'll serve twenty one days of the
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Speaker 1: forty five day sentence. You are given the prosecutor files
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Speaker 1: a motion for the evidence in your case to be destroyed.
8:38
Speaker 1: After twenty one days, you're let out of jail. Your
8:42
Speaker 1: worst fears have been realized. You've been fired, you've been
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Speaker 1: kicked out of your apartment. You don't know where most
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Speaker 1: of your belongings are, and you don't know where to turn.
8:58
Speaker 1: The story you just heard is based on the true
9:01
Speaker 1: events of Amy Albritton's wrongful conviction that resulted from a
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Speaker 1: roadside drug test. Somehow, the prosecutor's order to destroy the
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Speaker 1: evidence never got signed off on, and that substance they
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Speaker 1: found in her car that they claim tested positive for
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Speaker 1: crack cocaine it turned out to be a food crumb.
9:25
Speaker 1: Based on the junk science of roadside drug testing. The
9:29
Speaker 1: steady life that Amy built for herself and her family
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Speaker 1: was completely turned upside down. And Amy isn't the only one.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Dubin civil rights and criminal defense attorney, an
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Speaker 1: innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project in New York. Today,
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Speaker 1: on Wrongful Conviction junk Science, we explore roadside drug testing.
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Speaker 1: Turns out these faulty tests, which cost police departments two
10:00
Speaker 1: dollars a piece or less, are widely used across the
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Speaker 1: United States. They caused countless people to plead guilty to
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Speaker 1: crimes they didn't commit. These tests continued to be used
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Speaker 1: despite scientific evidence that proves just how ineffective they are.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, during the height of the War
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Speaker 1: on Drugs in the United States, a chemist by the
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Speaker 1: name of L. J. Scott Jr. Was tasked with creating
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Speaker 1: a test that could confirm the presence of cocaine. Now
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Speaker 1: Scott was already aware of one chemical that was being
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Speaker 1: used to test for cocaine, but the problem was it
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Speaker 1: was highly unreliable. This faulty test was made up of
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Speaker 1: a pink liquid, a chemical called cobalt thiocyanate. When cocaine
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Speaker 1: was added to this pink liquid, it turned blue, and
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Speaker 1: so the thinking went, whenever the pink liquid turns blue,
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Speaker 1: we could know if there is cocaine present. But the
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Speaker 1: problem was that it wasn't only cocaine, but plenty of
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Speaker 1: other substances that could also turn this pink chemical blue.
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Speaker 1: So Scott set out to work on creating a more
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Speaker 1: accurate test. He experimented with other chemicals, and finally he
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Speaker 1: came up with a three step test. Here's how it worked.
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Speaker 1: A small sealable bag contained three vials of chemicals. First,
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Speaker 1: the substance suspected to be cocaine was added to the
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Speaker 1: first vial that contained the same pink chemical as the
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Speaker 1: original test, cobalt thiocyanate. If that urn blue, it meant
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Speaker 1: the substance might be cocaine. Then the vial was placed
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Speaker 1: into the small bag with the other two vials. The
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Speaker 1: first vial was broken open, so the liquid contents would
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Speaker 1: leave the vial and sit at the bottom of the
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Speaker 1: transparent bag. Then the second vial would be broken open.
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Speaker 1: This vial contained a second chemical, hydrochloric acid, that was
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Speaker 1: supposed to mix with the first chemical and turn the
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Speaker 1: substance pink again. Then the third vial would be broken.
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Speaker 1: This final vial was filled with chloroform. If the liquid
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Speaker 1: mixture at the bottom of the bag split into two
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Speaker 1: layers so that a pink liquid floated to the top
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Speaker 1: and blue sank to the bottom, Scott said this confirmed
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Speaker 1: that the substance being tested was indeed cocaine. After working
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Speaker 1: on the test for nine months, Scott was so sure
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Speaker 1: of it that he declared the method proposed herein is
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Speaker 1: almost impossible to misinterpret. It is highly sensitive and specific.
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Speaker 1: Officers started carrying these portable roadside drug tests on them
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Speaker 1: while they patrolled neighborhoods and pulled people over for traffic violations.
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Speaker 1: They started using the tests on people suspected of possessing drugs,
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Speaker 1: and the arrest started flooding in. But this test turned
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Speaker 1: out to be not quite as full proof as Scott thought.
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Speaker 1: A study by toxicologists found that the three vile tests
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Speaker 1: would also show positive results for substances other than cocaine. Lytocane,
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Speaker 1: for example, a common numbing agent found in many first
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Speaker 1: aid kits used to soothe cuts and burns, also tested positive. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: Scott started his own company that sold drug test kits
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Speaker 1: to law enforcement. This company still exists today, and interestingly enough,
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Speaker 1: he stopped selling the kits with the three vile process. Instead,
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Speaker 1: he went back to the one step process, the test
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Speaker 1: with just the pink liquid that was already known to
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Speaker 1: be faulty, and to test positive for so many other substances.
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Speaker 1: He did this so that he could sell them for
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Speaker 1: less money, and they were a hit, and he expanded
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Speaker 1: beyond cocaine tests. His company also sells tests for opiates, MDMA, marijuana, LSD,
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Speaker 1: bath salts, and meth amphetamine. His website boasts that the
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Speaker 1: tests coming easy to use cheap packaging that prevents officers
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Speaker 1: from cutting their fingers while breaking the vials. When interviewed
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Speaker 1: by reporters from Pro Publica, Scott said that he had
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Speaker 1: no idea that these tests alone could send people to prison,
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Speaker 1: but indeed they were countless innocent people, including Amy Albritton,
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Speaker 1: ended up convicted based on cheap, highly flawed roadside tests
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Speaker 1: just like these.
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Speaker 2: Now, the problem with the drug kit is that these
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Speaker 2: things are incredibly unreliable, and so they come up with
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Speaker 2: positive for things like chocolate, like cleaning supplies like aspirin,
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Speaker 2: like sugar, weight gain powder, candle wax, drywall, soap, sand.
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Speaker 2: They all come back and test positive for narcotics. Because
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Speaker 2: these things are very unreliable and they're not supposed to
15:21
Speaker 2: be used specifically for actually getting a conviction, but many
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Speaker 2: people plea in the system to never get to a trial,
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Speaker 2: and these are used as the only evidence to actually
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Speaker 2: obtain a conviction. That's what happened in Amy's case.
15:35
Speaker 1: On our show today, we're talking to Greg Gloud. Greg
15:38
Speaker 1: is a policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity Now. Americans
15:43
Speaker 1: for Prosperity is a grassroots organization that educates citizens about
15:48
Speaker 1: policy issues at the local, state, and national level, and
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Speaker 1: one of the issues that Greg works on is criminal
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Speaker 1: justice reform. So I want to go into detail about
15:59
Speaker 1: these drug tests and kids walk us through some of
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Speaker 1: the issues associated with these tests. It sounds like there
16:06
Speaker 1: are quite a few of them.
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, so, there are a variety of
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Speaker 2: issues that go along with drug test kits, and there's
16:13
Speaker 2: so many areas in that chain of sequence from finding
16:17
Speaker 2: the substance to actually testing it that can go wrong.
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Speaker 2: And so first and foremost is actually training. And so
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Speaker 2: it seems very easy. You drop something in a vial
16:25
Speaker 2: and you test it and see if it turns a
16:27
Speaker 2: different color, and if it does, then it's supposed to
16:28
Speaker 2: be drugs. But it's not that simple, and so officers
16:32
Speaker 2: have to be trained accordingly on how these work. And
16:35
Speaker 2: the problem is a lot of different substances actually change
16:38
Speaker 2: the color. And so the way that the thought process
16:40
Speaker 2: is supposed to go about this is if it's not
16:42
Speaker 2: a drug, the substance shouldn't change in there. However, a
16:45
Speaker 2: lot of substances actually make that color go different, and
16:47
Speaker 2: so you have these situations where officers aren't properly trained
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Speaker 2: on how to use them, they break the different vials
16:53
Speaker 2: in the wrong way. It could be cold outside, the
16:56
Speaker 2: temperature changes different things, the chemicals might expired within them.
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Speaker 2: There's a lot of different ways that this can go wrong.
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Speaker 2: But even if you do everything correctly, everything right, the
17:06
Speaker 2: officer has been properly trained and he's one of the
17:08
Speaker 2: best you know at actually utilizing this he was a
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Speaker 2: former chemist. Let's just say the most crazy scenario where
17:14
Speaker 2: he knew exactly how to do this. There are so
17:17
Speaker 2: many different non controlled substances that actually test positive for
17:22
Speaker 2: drugs and change that substance that look like narcotics that
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Speaker 2: it makes it impossible to really verify if this is
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Speaker 2: a drug or not.
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Speaker 1: And let's be honest, most of these officers are not
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Speaker 1: scientists or chemists. And there are many other problems, including
17:36
Speaker 1: that these tests just aren't that easy to read. One
17:39
Speaker 1: color can easily be interpreted as another. So what are
17:43
Speaker 1: some examples of this?
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Speaker 2: For example, one test, it says that LSD should turn
17:48
Speaker 2: all of black, but sugar turns dark brown. Now, if
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Speaker 2: you're on the side of the road pulling someone over
17:54
Speaker 2: at night, there's lights flashing, things are going on, it's noisy,
17:58
Speaker 2: it's hot, you're in South Texas. You're shaking this thing
18:01
Speaker 2: around and you're looking at it and you're saying, is
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Speaker 2: that dark brown or is that all of black? I mean,
18:07
Speaker 2: it's a pretty ridiculous question, but this can mean the
18:10
Speaker 2: difference between someone being arrested or being let go free
18:14
Speaker 2: because of this slight color change. And then another test,
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Speaker 2: another very popular test, cocaine is supposed to be a
18:20
Speaker 2: deep orange yellow, while salt is a strong orange. If
18:25
Speaker 2: you can explain to me what a strong orange is
18:26
Speaker 2: compared to a deep orange yellow, please let me know.
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Speaker 1: So I'm thinking of someone like Amy, who we talked
18:44
Speaker 1: about at the beginning of this episode and whose story
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Speaker 1: was actually published in an article by pro Publica And
18:51
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're interested, you can find this
18:53
Speaker 1: article and others about these roadside drug tests and our
18:57
Speaker 1: show notes. But someone like Amy is taken to jail
19:01
Speaker 1: based on this flawed roadside test, and she's told by
19:07
Speaker 1: her court appointed defense attorney that there's another test that
19:10
Speaker 1: can verify the results. Of course, that test is going
19:14
Speaker 1: to take quite some time, but she's told that nonetheless.
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Speaker 1: So tell us about that second test, the lab test.
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Speaker 1: Is it actually reliable, And if it is reliable, why
19:24
Speaker 1: aren't they using it to verify the results right away
19:27
Speaker 1: instead of having, you know, people like Amy be presented
19:31
Speaker 1: with this very precarious circumstance in which they're made to
19:36
Speaker 1: wait around for a while.
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Speaker 2: With all these drug test kits, you know, and it
19:41
Speaker 2: says it right on the box, they should be verified
19:44
Speaker 2: by a forensics lab. And so most jurisdictions either have
19:48
Speaker 2: a state lab and then also for a larger cities,
19:51
Speaker 2: they'll have their own lab. So essentially what they do
19:54
Speaker 2: is take the substance, heat it up a lot, break
19:57
Speaker 2: it down to its elements, and then you can tell
19:58
Speaker 2: from that with you know pretty much one hundred percent
20:01
Speaker 2: certainty that what it is is either narcotics are not. However,
20:04
Speaker 2: most of the time it's not getting to that point.
20:07
Speaker 2: A lot of places, you know in Texas, the Department
20:09
Speaker 2: of Public and Safety there just doesn't have the time
20:12
Speaker 2: and bandwidth to actually verify a lot of these cases.
20:15
Speaker 2: Some jurisdiction, now Houston, after this story kind of broke,
20:18
Speaker 2: is now not allowing for plea deals to be accepted
20:21
Speaker 2: without that verification. But a lot of jurisdictions, preticting small jurisdictions,
20:24
Speaker 2: we have these major backlaws. People are playing within a
20:27
Speaker 2: couple of days, and then these things aren't being verified.
20:29
Speaker 2: Back every case can't get tested. With the amount and
20:33
Speaker 2: volume that we have, there's one point six million arrests
20:36
Speaker 2: for drug offenses each and every year, and if you
20:38
Speaker 2: try to verify and test all these substances, you never
20:41
Speaker 2: get through it. And so those are the problems. So
20:43
Speaker 2: the actual test, the actual science that should be used
20:47
Speaker 2: here is not being utilized because the criminal process stops
20:51
Speaker 2: within a couple of days for most of these individuals,
20:53
Speaker 2: and then the plea happens.
20:55
Speaker 1: So let's pause there for a second. Tell us about
20:58
Speaker 1: the plea. Why does so many innocent people end up
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Speaker 1: pleading guilty once they're charged based on these faulty roadside
21:06
Speaker 1: drug tests.
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Speaker 2: So a plea deal is a negotiation, and so what
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Speaker 2: it is is, hey, I can give you ten years
21:13
Speaker 2: on this, or you can take two today instead of
21:15
Speaker 2: going to trial, Let's settle this today. And so that
21:18
Speaker 2: is very attractive for a lot of people that are
21:20
Speaker 2: facing so much time, and it really does get to
21:22
Speaker 2: a point where it's quite coercive. Maybe they set your
21:26
Speaker 2: bail at five thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars. You can't
21:28
Speaker 2: afford it. So you sit in jail and you're claiming
21:31
Speaker 2: your innocence. You're claiming your innocence. Now the prosecute delays
21:33
Speaker 2: your case again, delays your case again. We'll accept a
21:36
Speaker 2: forty five day deal, or we can go to trial
21:38
Speaker 2: and maybe you'll get two years. And you have an
21:39
Speaker 2: overworked public defender who has a huge backlog of cases
21:43
Speaker 2: on their own and can't give you the time of
21:44
Speaker 2: day because you can't afford your own attorney. And so
21:47
Speaker 2: they're telling you take the plea, you have no chance
21:49
Speaker 2: go through this, and you're still sitting in jail, and
21:51
Speaker 2: sitting in jail, and jail's not a great place, and
21:53
Speaker 2: jail it's hot or it's freezing cold, and you're with
21:56
Speaker 2: other people that are actually you know, dangerous criminals in
22:00
Speaker 2: this place, and you're going through it, and you start
22:02
Speaker 2: to think of this cost benefit analysis of do I
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Speaker 2: stay in here, take this and go, or do I
22:07
Speaker 2: continue to fight this case of potentially risk you know,
22:09
Speaker 2: multiple years, are staying in here for another six to
22:12
Speaker 2: eight months. You know, the public defender is telling you
22:14
Speaker 2: the backlog at that lab is twelve to eighteen months.
22:17
Speaker 2: You know, you can't get out for quite a while.
22:20
Speaker 2: You know, these are the types of fears and risk
22:21
Speaker 2: and things people are going through in this process. And
22:24
Speaker 2: so that's why folks like Amy and thousands of others
22:27
Speaker 2: across the country have accepted plead deals, even when they're
22:30
Speaker 2: actually innocent.
22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what's really tragic is that once these innocent
22:36
Speaker 1: people plead guilty. Whatever was used to convict them, you know,
22:40
Speaker 1: whatever was taken from their car and dropped in one
22:44
Speaker 1: of these biles that the police are saying tested positive
22:48
Speaker 1: for a certain drug usually gets destroyed. So if they
22:52
Speaker 1: ever want to get a hold of the evidence to
22:54
Speaker 1: try to demonstrate that they actually pled guilty to something
22:57
Speaker 1: they didn't do, they can't get it exactly right.
23:00
Speaker 2: You know, evidence in a lot of these cases has
23:02
Speaker 2: been destroyed, and so we really don't know how many
23:05
Speaker 2: people have been wrongfully convicted because you may not be
23:07
Speaker 2: able to.
23:08
Speaker 1: Verify the results.
23:09
Speaker 2: I know Pro Publica did a study and they estimated
23:12
Speaker 2: about one hundred thousand people a year probably plead guilty
23:15
Speaker 2: based upon drug test kits alone. And so even if
23:18
Speaker 2: you have a small air rate there, I mean, you're
23:20
Speaker 2: talking about thousands of people potentially each year that actually
23:23
Speaker 2: had never done anything wrong pleading guilty. And how many
23:25
Speaker 2: of those cases do you actually have the destruction of evidence. Luckily,
23:29
Speaker 2: for Amy, and it's tough to say Anything's lucky about
23:31
Speaker 2: her case was that, you know, in Harris County, you
23:35
Speaker 2: had a forensics lab that didn't want to destroy evidence,
23:37
Speaker 2: and you also had so much volume that a motion
23:40
Speaker 2: to destroy evidence about at the bottom of the barrel
23:43
Speaker 2: for a judge of signed. So that motion was never
23:45
Speaker 2: signed in her case, and so six months later this
23:47
Speaker 2: was actually tested and it was a food crump.
23:50
Speaker 1: So because of what was really an oversight, the evidence
23:53
Speaker 1: in her case was never destroyed. So they were able
23:57
Speaker 1: to retest the evidence and find out that she's actually innocent,
24:02
Speaker 1: and they sent the letter to Amy's house notifying her,
24:05
Speaker 1: but it took a long time to actually get that letter,
24:08
Speaker 1: so Amy went a long time not knowing that this
24:11
Speaker 1: evidence had ever been retested.
24:14
Speaker 2: Now, the problem with that, and the problem in Amy's
24:17
Speaker 2: case is that she had moved from her original address
24:19
Speaker 2: at that time. And so for a lot of folks,
24:21
Speaker 2: I mean, this has been going on for years, they
24:23
Speaker 2: can't find everyone, and so these criminal convictions continue to linger.
24:26
Speaker 2: Some of these individuals were homeless, some of these are
24:28
Speaker 2: extreme poverty. Some of them moved out far away and
24:31
Speaker 2: don't understand that this is going on, and so a
24:34
Speaker 2: lot of these cases are still unresolved to this day.
24:36
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened to Amy's case. I think
24:38
Speaker 2: her initial letter was sent in twenty fourteen. It took
24:41
Speaker 2: until two reporters from the New York Times to finally
24:44
Speaker 2: get in touch with her and finally found her. You know,
24:48
Speaker 2: six years later after this happened, she had already had
24:50
Speaker 2: the criminal conviction on her record. She had lost everything
24:53
Speaker 2: she was working at like a convenience store, and then
24:55
Speaker 2: kind of working for a slumlord after that because she
24:57
Speaker 2: couldn't get a job with a felony record. So this
25:00
Speaker 2: entire woman's life is ruined based upon the evidence of
25:03
Speaker 2: this drug care.
25:05
Speaker 1: Look, I know exactly what you're talking about. I have
25:08
Speaker 1: so many clients that when they get out, you know,
25:11
Speaker 1: there's always you know, a celebration and oftentimes it's covered
25:16
Speaker 1: in the press. And after that first you know, twenty
25:21
Speaker 1: four forty eight seventy two hours, you know, a different
25:26
Speaker 1: kind of nightmare begins for them. You know, trying to
25:30
Speaker 1: assimilate back into society is just you know, very very difficult.
25:36
Speaker 1: The psychological harm that is done, you know, from somebody
25:41
Speaker 1: being in a combined space and having to answer to someone,
25:45
Speaker 1: having to ask permission to do something, you know, simple
25:48
Speaker 1: things like go to the bathroom or eat. It's just
25:51
Speaker 1: it's hard to undo. And you know, this stain of
25:58
Speaker 1: a wrongful incarceration or wrongful conviction really sticks with you.
26:03
Speaker 2: You know the Internet, things don't leave there, and so
26:06
Speaker 2: you have this arrest record on there. You have these
26:08
Speaker 2: convictions on there, and those linger with you for quite
26:11
Speaker 2: a while. It costs thousands of dollars to get your
26:14
Speaker 2: case exponge, even if you're wrongfully convicted, and even if
26:17
Speaker 2: you get that off your physical record, the digital record
26:20
Speaker 2: still stays there. You have a mug shot that's out there,
26:23
Speaker 2: you have this arrest record, you have the plea. You
26:26
Speaker 2: have all these different documents and they can be scrubbed
26:28
Speaker 2: from one thing, but they can pop up on another.
26:30
Speaker 2: You'll have the same company have something called mugshots dot
26:34
Speaker 2: com and then they'll have mugshots with the z dot
26:37
Speaker 2: com and then you have to pay to get it
26:38
Speaker 2: off of there. And so you know, I'm sure if
26:40
Speaker 2: you looked up Amy Albritton and criminal history on a
26:43
Speaker 2: lot of these different sites, you probably still see that
26:45
Speaker 2: she was arrested, charge and convicted for drug possession. And
26:48
Speaker 2: if you're trying to get a job, you're trying to
26:50
Speaker 2: get public funding, public housing, apply to school, all these
26:54
Speaker 2: different things that's going to pop up, and sometimes an
26:56
Speaker 2: employer or a college or something else will just brush
27:00
Speaker 2: past you because of that, even though you were actually
27:02
Speaker 2: exonerated of a crime.
27:04
Speaker 1: So if these tests are so problematic, why is law
27:07
Speaker 1: enforcement still using them? Why are they so popular?
27:11
Speaker 2: Well, they're incredibly popular. And the reason that they're so
27:14
Speaker 2: popular is because they're cheap and they allow and I'm
27:16
Speaker 2: using this term loosely, for officers and proseures to gather
27:20
Speaker 2: some sort of chemical evidence early on in the trial
27:23
Speaker 2: and keep that churn of the criminal justice system going.
27:26
Speaker 2: We had one point six million arrests for drug offenses
27:28
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. If everyone went to trial on those things,
27:31
Speaker 2: you'd never get through. It would take decades to get
27:34
Speaker 2: through all the cases. And so what a field drug
27:36
Speaker 2: test kit does is allow us to exhibitize the criminal
27:39
Speaker 2: justice system and garner police from individuals at the earliest
27:42
Speaker 2: stage in the process.
27:44
Speaker 1: So, do you think there's anything that can prevent these
27:48
Speaker 1: roadside drug tests from resulting in innocent people getting convicted.
27:53
Speaker 2: Because of investigative stories like we had in Atlanta. There
27:57
Speaker 2: was an incredible one down there where they found that
27:58
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty five if people just in twenty
28:01
Speaker 2: seventeen alone were wrongfully convicted of drug possession, and the
28:05
Speaker 2: ones in Houston, and we had certain cases in Arizona
28:08
Speaker 2: and Las Vegas. These investigative reports and these types of
28:12
Speaker 2: podcasts that you guys are doing has brought more information
28:15
Speaker 2: on the inaccuracies of these and actually, inhers count they
28:17
Speaker 2: no longer allow for a plea to be entered until
28:21
Speaker 2: it has been verified by a laboratory, and so you
28:24
Speaker 2: are seeing changes across the country on how these are utilized.
28:27
Speaker 2: But still in many jurisdictions, particularly smaller jurisdictions, judges are
28:31
Speaker 2: taking these pleas and prosecutors are driving these pleas without
28:35
Speaker 2: actually verifying the results.
28:37
Speaker 1: These types of stories are extremely valuable, but the sad
28:41
Speaker 1: truth is that these kinds of changes take a lot
28:44
Speaker 1: of work and a lot of time. So in the meantime,
28:48
Speaker 1: for the immediate future, is there anything else that can
28:51
Speaker 1: be done to stop these kinds of wrongful convictions?
28:56
Speaker 2: If you're about to accept a plea based upon this alone,
28:59
Speaker 2: do not.
29:00
Speaker 1: Now.
29:00
Speaker 2: You do have newer technologies today that actually are able
29:03
Speaker 2: to be more readily accurate and don't produce as many
29:06
Speaker 2: false positives, but those are very expensive and a lot
29:09
Speaker 2: of you know, smaller jurisdictions can't afford those, and so
29:12
Speaker 2: that's a good thing, but that's going to be, you know,
29:14
Speaker 2: a long ways out, and so you know, these drug
29:17
Speaker 2: test kits are still very prevalent, so this just should
29:19
Speaker 2: not be used in the first place.
29:24
Speaker 1: It's likely that stories like Amy's would have remained cloaked
29:27
Speaker 1: in silence had it not been for journalists from Pro
29:30
Speaker 1: Publica and The New York Times who did extensive reporting
29:34
Speaker 1: to understand the depth of the problems that are associated
29:38
Speaker 1: with roadside drug test kits. In fact, Amy likely wouldn't
29:42
Speaker 1: have learned about the retesting of the evidence in her case,
29:45
Speaker 1: which verified what she already knew that she was innocent,
29:49
Speaker 1: if these reporters hadn't tracked her down. It's because of
29:53
Speaker 1: these investigative journalists that the problems associated with drug test
29:58
Speaker 1: kits came to light, and it's in a large party
30:01
Speaker 1: to their reporting that local municipalities across the country are
30:06
Speaker 1: being pressured to change their regulations regarding roadside drug tests.
30:11
Speaker 1: Oversight is being implemented to ensure that the work of
30:14
Speaker 1: crime labs is reliable. There's increased scrutiny of plea deals
30:18
Speaker 1: for drug offenses where there isn't evidence to support a
30:22
Speaker 1: person's guilt. This kind of reporting is extraordinarily important for
30:28
Speaker 1: helping the Innocence Project and lawyers like me identify cases
30:33
Speaker 1: where individuals were wrongfully convicted, and to bring these cases
30:37
Speaker 1: to the public's attention. So subscribe to news outlets like
30:41
Speaker 1: Pro Publica, The Marshall Project, the New York Times, or
30:45
Speaker 1: wherever you see quality journalism that is focused on exposing
30:50
Speaker 1: the shortcomings of our criminal justice system. We hear this
30:54
Speaker 1: phrase fake news, fake news. It's all fake news, carelessly
30:59
Speaker 1: tossed around to the point where people are actually beginning
31:02
Speaker 1: to believe that they should be dismissive of anything written
31:06
Speaker 1: by a journalist. This is so dangerous for reasons that
31:10
Speaker 1: I think are obvious to listeners of this show. This
31:14
Speaker 1: assault on our media makes support incredible news organizations more
31:19
Speaker 1: important than ever, as it is often under the microscope
31:22
Speaker 1: of their thorough investigative reporting that we uncover and then
31:27
Speaker 1: prevent the junk science behind wrongful convictions. Next week, we'll
31:38
Speaker 1: explore the junk science of eyewitness identification with the renowned
31:43
Speaker 1: psychologist and memory expert Elizabeth loftis Wrongful conviction junk science
31:49
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
31:52
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer
31:56
Speaker 1: Jason Flahm and the team at Signal Company Number One
31:59
Speaker 1: executive producer Kevin Wardis and senior producers Karen Kornhaber and
32:03
Speaker 1: Britz Spangler. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You
32:08
Speaker 1: can follow me on Instagram at dubin Josh. Follow the
32:11
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32:15
Speaker 1: Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction