In Marshall v. People, the Colorado Supreme Court addressed the admissibility of lab reports in DUI and DUID cases.
In that case, the prosecution had sought to admit the lab test results performed by a technician who was not actually present at trial. They sought to admit those reports through the technician’s supervisor, Cynthia Burbach. The reports were in fact admitted over the objection of the defendant and his attorney. Ms. Marshall appealed.
The Supreme Court ultimately sided with the trial court, determining that admitting the reports through Ms. Burbach posed no legal issues, despite her not being the person to actually perform the lab analysis. The court deemed this to be acceptable because she had supervised the testing process, reviewed all the data generated by the test, and also made the determination that the data accurately determined that Marshall had methamphetamine present in her urine.
Furthermore, the court held that Ms. Burbach had herself been the lab employee who “accomplished the requested analysis” because she performed the final analysis of the data required to certify the results as accurate.
Kimberly Diego is a criminal defense attorney in Denver practicing at The Law Office of Kimberly Diego. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and her law degree at University of Colorado. She was named one of Super Lawyers’ “Rising Stars of 2012” and “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in Colorado” for 2012 and 2013 by The National Trial Lawyers. Both honors are limited to a small percentage of practicing attorneys in each state. She has also been recognized for her work in domestic violence cases.
