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Police: Thousands of blood-alcohol tests reviewed again

Posted at 12:19 PM, Aug 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-23 12:21:37-04

DETROIT (AP) — A Michigan State Police spokesman says no one was wrongly prosecuted for drunken driving as a result of blood-alcohol tests that were incorrectly analyzed.

Lt. Mike Shaw says the problem involved a high-tech processing file on a machine at the state police lab. It affected 4,001 cases statewide over a four-month period. But Shaw said Tuesday that a new round of tests showed only “minute” differences.

Half the tests didn’t require any correction. Shaw says the revised results also didn’t have an impact in cases where the blood-alcohol level was initially found to be near 0.08, the threshold for drunken driving.

In 18 cases, Shaw says the new results put the blood-alcohol level at 0.17 or slightly higher, the threshold for “super drunk.”

New reports are being sent to prosecutors.