Nick Bergamo, a college student in LA got a DUI. He gave a blood test, and the results came out at twice the legal limit. But Bergamo knew he hadn't been driving under the influence. He got a lawyer, not just any law firm, but that of Lawrence Taylor, one of the foremost DUI gurus in the country. Turns out, the LAPD botched the test by mixing up his blood sample with someone else's. The case got dismissed.

So if you get a DUI in LA this holiday season, or really, anywhere, make sure your lawyer re-tests the sample.

"With the stakes so high, Bergamo's parents sought out the law offices of Lawrence Taylor, a firm that deals exclusively with DUI cases. Lawyers in that firm automatically retest blood samples tested by the police."

"Taylor, who has written books on the subject of DUIs, said test results from police labs are often unreliable. Sometimes the equipment is not calibrated correctly, he said, or sometimes police put too much or too little of a blood preservative in the sample, which can affect results."

"I'm not a real big fan of crime labs and their criminalists. They're clueless. But most attorneys know less, and that's why they can get by," said Taylor.

"In Bergamo's case, the test results from the LAPD showed that the blood alcohol level in the sample was 0.148. When Taylor's lab performed the test, the results were 0.13. For Bergamo, even the retested results seemed impossible. His attorney then conducted a blood-typing test to determine whether it was Bergamo's blood. That test failed to exclude him as a possible donor."

"The young man, however, was insistent that a mistake had been made. A DNA test was his last hope to prove it. His parents agreed to pay the additional expense of such a test, which runs about $1,200."

"The results finally cleared Bergamo. A judge earlier this month dismissed the case and made a factual finding of innocence on his behalf."

"Since the dismissal, word of Bergamo's case has spread among local defense attorneys in court hallways and legal chat rooms on the Internet."

"DUI practitioners dealing with blood analysis should be aware that crime labs continue to fail in their chain-of-custody record keeping," Taylor warned other lawyers in a recent e-mail message. "And the LAPD apparently remains a prime culprit."

We're spreading the word even further. Thanks to Ann Salisbury of Two Tears in a Bucket for sending us the link to the article.

There will be DUI checkpoints and lots of arrests this holiday season. If you want to brush up on the law and defenses relative to Driving under the Influence, check out our sister site CrimeLynx which has a section devoted to drunk driving defense here.

We rarely defend DUI cases, so please don't take this as a solicitation for our legal services. This is merely a public service announcement.