(The Center Square) – Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison is calling on the Washington State Legislature to pass a House bill that seeks to alleviate the state’s sole toxicology lab’s backlog of blood tests for driving under the influence cases.
Currently, state law only allows blood sampling in DUI cases to be done solely by the Toxicology Laboratory Division of the Washington State Patrol, which has created a backlog in pending tests for DUI cases.
As a result of the backlog, the state toxicology lab takes an average of more than 400 days to return toxicology results necessary to proceed with DUI cases, according to Davison.
“The state backlog means we are just now receiving results for DUI arrests that occurred in the first half of 2023,” Davison said in a statement on Thursday. “If a possible DUI is referred by Seattle police to my office today, based on the current backlog, results likely will not arrive until sometime in 2026.”
House Bill 1228 would amend state law to allow certified private laboratories to test blood draw samples in DUI cases. It was Introduced last week by House Repr. David Hackney, D-Tukwila, and Andrew Barkis, R-Olympia.
The Seattle Police Department refers more than 1,000 DUI cases to Davison’s office. Notably, more than half of those cases involve drugs, rather than alcohol.
Davison notes that the delay in toxicology results can lead to DUI suspects going unsupervised and driving impaired again, or witnesses moving away.
“Legislators must pass this bill to allow alternatives to process the blood samples so we, as a society, can better send the message that we take our road safety seriously and will hold accountable anyone putting all of us at risk because of impaired driving,” Davison said.
If the bill is passed, Washington would join Oregon, Colorado, New York and New Jersey in allowing testing by federally accredited private toxicology labs.
HB 1228 is scheduled for public hearing in the House Committee on Community Safety on Jan. 27.
