Proficiency Testing Rules For DUI Cases

     Pennsylvania's Department of Health has enacted Alcohol and Drug proficiency testing rules that must be met before a laboratory's test results may be admitted in a DUI prosecution. The State Police labs have been exempted from that regulation, and are governed by a separate enabling statute, but all licensed laboratories participate in the proficiency testing program. The program requirements are separately published for alcohol and for drug testing:

Proficiency Testing for Laboratories Performing Analyses of Blood for Alcohol Content

Proficiency Testing for Laboratories Performing Analyses of Blood for Drugs

The state proficiency test results are subject to the state Right to Know law, and the results of proficiency testing for your laboratory may be secured directly from the Department of health.

Right To Know Law requests to the Bureau of Laboratories Sample request - customize for the Laboratory performing tests in your case.

Department of Health RTKL Response on Proficiency Testing:

The Bureau [of Laboratories] also has a paper record of each laboratory's proficiency testing results over the last two years. These records are not available electronically. You may make arrangements with Dr. Shoemaker to review them. If you wish to secure a copy of them, the Department will provide you with copies. The copying charges would exceed $100 [for all certified laboratories]. Pursuant to the Department's published Right-to-Know Law Policy, you would be required to prepay the copying charges before the Department would provide you with copies. If you apprise Dr. Shoemaker that you want copies of the test results for the two-year period, he will arrange for the number of pages to be counted and then apprise you of the exact charges.

Sample Proficiency Testing Report Note that the state's "proficiency" testing program requires that certified labs achieve test results within ten percent of target value at least 80% of the time, in at least every other survey. Is that sufficient accuracy on which to deprive a citizen of his or her liberty? An excerpt from the Bureau of Laboratories sample test report explains the essence of the program:

acceptable ranges are determined by calculating the target or mean value for each specimen +/- 10 mg/dL in the specimen concentration range from 0 to 100 mg/dL, the mean +/- 10% in the range from 101 to 200 mg/dL, and the mean +/- 20 mg/dL in the range above 200 mg/dL.

In accordance with the regulations (28 Pa. Code § 5.50) to the Commonwealth's Clinical Laboratory Act (35 P.S. §§2151-2165), laboratories that receive scores of less than 80% will be considered to have performed unsatisfactorily for the determination of alcohol in that specimen matrix. Surveys for the determination of alcohol in blood and serum will be graded separately. Unsatisfactory performance in determining alcohol in blood or serum in two consecutive surveys will result in revocation of approval to offer testing services for those types of specimens.