The Role of Chemical Analysis in Contesting Methamphetamine Charges in Missouri

Understanding Chemical Analysis in Meth-Related Criminal Cases

If you are facing charges related to drug crimes in Missouri, the potential penalties may be severe. From driving under the influence to distribution or manufacturing, crimes involving methamphetamines can land you in prison if you’re convicted. You may also face fees and other penalties.

Talking to an experienced defense attorney as soon as possible after you realize you may be charged with a drug-related crime can help you understand your options and begin to create a strategic defense. A lawyer can also help you understand important details of your case, such as the role chemical analysis might play in the building of evidence against you.

What Role Does Chemical Analysis Play in Meth-Related Charges?

Many drug-related cases, including those involving methamphetamines, often require toxicology or other chemical analysis. The purpose of chemical analysis in these types of cases is to use scientific tools and procedures to help explain what happened or didn’t happen.

For example, field and lab analysis can help determine whether a driver was operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs, including meth. Lab analysis of evidence can be used to identify certain substances, proving or disproving that something is actually meth. Chemical analysis may be used on other evidence to discover if there are trace amounts of methamphetamine on a person’s clothing or in a car.

All of these facts can be used to build a case that someone was engaged in criminal activity involving meth or other types of illicit drugs.

Potential Defenses Using or Contesting Chemical Analysis

While the technology behind and apparent confidence in lab analysis and other chemical analyses can make it seem like conclusions drawn during these processes are hard facts, that isn’t always the case. There are options for contesting such data and conclusions, and defendants in methamphetamine-related criminal cases might also be able to use chemical analysis to their benefit.

Establishing Potential Issues With Chain of Custody

Generally, evidence must be handled with extreme care and attention to detail, and some of those details relate to chain-of-custody rules. Law enforcement investigators and others, including officers, forensic scientists, and anyone else who handles evidence related to a case, must carefully document the evidence.

When there’s a break in the paper trail related to the evidence, that can weaken the chain of custody. If you can demonstrate that the evidence was not properly handled, that it wasn’t handled by the right people, or that there was a period of time when the evidence might have gone missing or been tampered with, you may have a solid basis for a defense. Mishandled evidence that doesn’t follow chain of custody rules may not be admissible in a case.

Identifying Potential Contamination Issues

Another potential way to call evidence into question in a case involving methamphetamine charges is to demonstrate that samples may have been contaminated. For example, if samples are taken from a suspected crime scene and brought to a lab that has previously tested meth-related samples, there is a risk that the new samples could be contaminated with meth from previous work. Crime labs do typically have protocols in place to help prevent this type of cross-contamination, but it’s not impossible.

Challenging Testing or Equipment Accuracy

If you can show that processes were not followed correctly during tests or that the equipment itself was faulty, this can cast doubt on results. For instance, crime labs might use specific equipment to identify a substance as meth or help create a narrative about how much of the drug was on a certain item. However, what if that same equipment requires periodic calibration to ensure accuracy? Illustrating that the equipment wasn’t calibrated as required can create doubt about the accuracy of test results.

Leveraging Expert Testimony

Chemical analysis in methamphetamine cases can be quite complex. If part of your defense strategy involves undermining the results of those analyses in court or using the results to help support facts in your favor, you may want to have an expert testify. Experts can help explain the purpose of chemical analysis and how these scientific tests work. They can also make educated statements about the expected outcomes of tests, calibration and other accuracy factors, and whether procedures were followed when tests were conducted.

Get Help From a Criminal Defense Attorney

While some of these strategies may seem like common sense—if you can undermine the analysis, naturally the case against you is weakened—they still require experience and knowledge to leverage. If you are facing methamphetamine charges, the Loraine Law Center, LLC, can provide that experience and knowledge.

We’ll review the charges and evidence against you, examining a variety of details. That includes lab analyses that may be relevant to your case. Then we work with you to create a criminal defense strategy we believe is most likely to support a positive outcome.

For a free 30-minute consultation during which we find out more about your situation and provide some information about how we can help, contact the Loraine Law Center, LLC, by calling our Jefferson City location at 573-284-3048 or our Kansas City location at 816-720-763.