Thousands of DWI convictions in North Texas could be in jeopardy or dismissed completely after a leading forensic analyst for the Texas Department of Public Safety was accused of perjury.
Christopher Youngkin may have given conflicting testimony about how he handled blood-alcohol testing.
Attorneys claim the DPS analyst could have handled up to 15,000 blood samples in question. It all came to light after Dallas and Denton County district attorneys sent out notifications to defense attorneys calling into question evidence used to convict their clients in DWI cases that involved Youngkin.
The concern is what happened inside the Garland DPS Forensics Lab and whether Youngkin may have given conflicting testimony under oath about a lab error several years ago where he mixed up the results of two blood samples.
The attorneys directly involved in the DWI cases that might be retried say they've always questioned his credibility.
"We've had trial after trial with this analyst and we always knew there was something wrong," said Hunter Biederman, an attorney in Collin County. "We'd have a high test blood case, someone that looked perfect on the video and we knew there was some sort of error, but we could never point to a reason why that disconnect could be there."
DPS officials are not commenting, pending the outcome of the case. Youngkin ended up invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to testify last week, and a hearing on the issue will be held Thursday in Collin County.
