Almost a decade ago, a Simi Valley-based medical supply company began providing the California Department of Justice urinalysis tests for law enforcement agencies around the state that didn’t have local forensic labs to test for alcohol.
For most of that time, the test kits Andwin Scientific supplied were faulty, potentially inflating the results of DUI suspects in the heart of California’s wine country and elsewhere, according to a letter state officials sent to Sonoma County prosecutors that was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
As a result, an untold number of criminal cases across California were potentially up for review, with about 60 law enforcement agencies and seven district attorney’s offices informed that cases in their jurisdictions could be affected, a state Justice Department spokesperson said. Generally, urinalysis tests are rarely used to prosecute DUIs…