The High Court has rejected defendant Iosefo Sagote’s challenge of a drug test conducted by the Court Probation Office.
Sagote had used the results of a test done by the LBJ Hospital which showed negative results for drugs in his blood to dispute the positive test result administered by the Probation Office.
According to a written decision issued last week on Sagote’s order to show cause hearing, the court said it is not persuaded that the hospital testing takes anything away from the reliability of the Probation Office test results.
The court said the key term in the defendant’s condition of probation is “random”. It not only serves as a deterret against the continued drug use by a probationer but it enhances the integrity of the collection and testing process.
in other words, the testing process is in the total control of the testing official and not the person to be tested. This minimizes sample substitution, sample adulteration or tampering and the timely testing thereof. Here, defendant’s hospital drug test was undertaken at a time and place he determined and was not therefore random. Consequently we view the results of defendant’s second tests in a light less favorable than the random test conducted by the Probation Office.”
The court also said the defendant’s owner evidence regarding the hospital’s urine collection process while perhaps adequate for clinical purposes was woefully short for forensic use. Whereas the evidence regarding the PO’s collection protocol left little room for doubt that the sample tested was indeed collected from defendant and then timely tested.
The court also had doubts about the defendant’s claim that he had his urine and blood tested at the hospital on the same day he was tested by the Probation Office.
The court points out that on one page of the test results the date of the test is listed as Dec 18, 2018, and another page says the sample was collected on December 20.
Thus it is unclear whether the test was conducted on December 18 as the defendant claims or December 20.
According to the decision, “Regardles, even if we assumed that a urinalysis testing occurred on Dec 18, the test remains questionable since it was not randomly undertaken nor was the hospital’s collection process sufficient to dispel doubt that the sample tested was indeed from the defendant.”
The court also stressed that the integrity of the sample is crucial in determining whether the results are valid.
“The forensic process established by law enforcement to ensure a sample’s integrity is a clear chain of custody,” said the court.
The decision said the PO’s “chain of custody is beyond reproach.”
The Probation Officer witnessed the defendant urinate into the bio cup and then read the immunoassay test results on the spot. There is no reason to doubt the validity of the test.
In contrast no one witnessed defendant urinating into the cup at the hospital likewise no one would verify that the sample from the defendant went directly to the laboratory or testing facility.
Sagote was sentenced last October to one year in jail for possession of marijuana however his sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for five years.
Conditions of his probation was that he report to the Probation Office monthly or as often as directed, and submitting to random testing.
However the month after he was sentenced, Sagote didn’t report to the Probation Office and in December he was drug tested by the Probation Office which turned up a positive result.
The ruling on the drug test was signed by Chief Justice Michael Kruse, and associate judges Faamausili Pomele and Muasau Tofili.
Sagote was represented by Marcellus Uiagalelei while Assistant Attorney General Christy Dunn prosecuted.
