DuPage County state’s attorney dismisses marijuana DUI charges after faulty blood tests<\/a><\/p>\nThe I-Team traveled to Texas to explore what is considered the gold standard of forensic science accountability.<\/p>\n
In downtown Houston, inside an unassuming high-rise building is the Houston Forensic Science Center, led by Dr. Peter Stout, the center’s CEO and president. He said real accountability for labs in Texas was born out of a history of forensic fiascos so significant that they required legislative intervention.<\/p>\n
“The worst crime lab in the country. That’s what this laboratory was,” proclaimed Stout.<\/p>\n
To combat a history of poor testing and bad science, the Texas legislature created the Forensic Science Commission in the early 2000s to independently oversee, and if necessary, penalize labs and scientists for bad science.<\/p>\n
It also made the Houston forensic lab independent of the Houston police. More recently, Texas passed a law requiring an online portal to disclose forensic evidence to both defense attorneys and prosecutors at the same time.<\/p>\n
Stout said, “It changes the dynamic between law enforcement, prosecution, the courts, and the feds. You’re going to get an independent answer from the laboratory, and you might not like that answer.”<\/p>\n
Inside the lab, where tens of thousands of cases per year are processed, Stout said getting the forensic science right is vital to the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n
“It is disproportionately impactful evidence. And we’ve got to take it seriously, that the controls, oversight, the quality of that matches the expectation that people have.”<\/p>\n
Stout also weighed in on the evidence provided in Illinois by the UIC forensic lab for marijuana DUI cases, saying it “pains him.”<\/p>\n
“It is really easy for labs without the framework around them to end up in some really unfortunate place,” Stout said.<\/p>\n
The I-Team also traveled to Austin, where the Forensic Science Commission reviews allegations of forensic misconduct.<\/p>\n
One member read from newly filed paperwork about a lab worker accused of inappropriate behavior.<\/p>\n
“The complaint alleges that the analyst withheld information from the defense and exhibited bias,” the paperwork said.<\/p>\n
Members took official action against that former Texas lab scientist for poor forensic drug testing, barring them from future employment in a state lab.<\/p>\n
Lynn White Garcia, the commission’s general counsel said, “We were able to really look at that and say OK, that’s enough for us, and we’re going to take action to make sure that this person is not employed anywhere else in the future.”<\/p>\n
It is that power to penalize that leads to better forensic science presented in court, Stout told the I-Team.<\/p>\n
But to get this kind of commission with oversight authority, the power to investigate and take action against bad forensic science, it takes legislators who are ready to act.<\/p>\n
That is something that could be accomplished in Illinois with its own evolving Forensic Science Commission.<\/p>\n
Watroba said Illinois’ commission, which started meeting in 2022, is effective through policy initiatives, incident analysis and helping with new legislation.<\/p>\n
But she acknowledges the relatively young group could eventually change with public demand and action from lawmakers.<\/p>\n
“A good commission is structured in such a way that it is designed to evolve, adapt and grow as the needs of the community and landscape it serves changes. So yes, Illinois’ commission is designed to evolve,” she explained.<\/p>\n
The commission called on UIC to initiate a comprehensive audit of the now shuttered human toxicology lab, made by an independent agency with forensic science expertise.<\/p>\n
Watroba said they have not yet received a response.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — A prominent lab used by prosecutors for marijuana DUI testing in Chicago and the suburbs…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":761063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[312748,960,5462,312742,227388,312744,312745,5386,1818,29931,260716,312746,312747,312743],"class_list":["post-761062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-312748","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-news","tag-drug-test","tag-drug-testing","tag-dui-test","tag-dui-testing","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-marijuana-dui","tag-uic-chicago","tag-uic-drug-lab","tag-uic-drug-testing","tag-weed-dui"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116487397564118396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}