Thousands of marijuana DUI convictions may be in jeopardy after report on UIC drug testing lab

CHICAGO (WLS) -- There is fallout following an ABC7 I-Team report exposing suspect lab tests in marijuana driving-under-the-influence cases.

Metro Chicago-area prosecutors are in the weeds trying to figure out what to do, how many cases are damaged, which defendants are wrongly locked up and who may have to be released.

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Former McHenry County States Attorney Patrick Kenneally is echoing what undoubtedly happened all day Friday in prosecutors' offices across metro Chicago: lawyers going through files from old cases, checking whether blood tests were conducted for marijuana at the University of Illinois Chicago Analytical Forensic Testing Laboratory.

"The first call that I would be making after seeing your report, and a good report it is, I would call over to the lab itself, and I would say, 'What the heck is going on?'" Kenneally said.

As the I-Team reported on Thursday, impaired driving convictions that relied on tests from the UIC lab could be in jeopardy because some results have been deemed inaccurate.

"I think the state's attorneys aren't just now getting knowledge about as quickly as the defense attorneys. And as far as I know, they're turning it over now," defense attorney Don Ramsell said. "So the fault really lies with the lab. And, you know, they've been keeping these things secret. They cover up their own mistakes."

Ramsell claims 15,000 convictions are at risk because of inaccurate marijuana blood tests at the U of I Chicago lab, and some motorists convicted on with the test results are now in jail.

Kenneally says it would be an enormous problem if the tests which supported the conviction have been compromised.

"If somebody is in prison because we put them in jail for driving under the influence of cannabis, which caused, let's say, somebody's death, which is the type of charge that would send them to prison, we would have to inform them, as well as their defense counsel, of the fact that, hey, after speaking with the scientists at the lab, it appears as though some of these tests had been compromised, and we would have to do that across the board, with respect to every single one of these charges that we filed," Kenneally said. "And that gets very complicated, and it creates a lot of opportunities for collateral attacks on convictions after sometimes the sentences have already been served."

DuPage County States Attorney Bob Berlin told the I-Team that numerous west suburban cases relied on not only UIC lab results but sometimes on testimony from lab experts at trial. Berlin indicated the marijuana DUI havoc has potential to affect numerous cases in DuPage County, and while the I-Team hasn't heard from other collar county prosecutors, it expects the problems could be widespread.

The UIC lab declined comment Friday, during what they describe as an internal investigation.