A Marine Corps gunnery sergeant and Afghanistan warfare hero noticed his drug conviction overturned this fall by the Navy and Marine Corps Court docket of Prison Appeals.
Gunnery Sgt. Rory R. Hirst’s conviction was based mostly on a urine pattern that examined constructive for an unlawful drug.
However through the course of the appeals course of, the case in opposition to Hirst revealed troubling shortfalls in how no less than one urinalysis lab dealt with samples of service members being examined for medication.
A constructive drug check result’s a profession killer for service members, and may result in a federal conviction, confinement and a dishonorable discharge.
Given the stakes, precision is a should in such settings, and Hirst’s courtroom data elevate questions on how no less than one such lab is being run.
“The Sailors and Marines who face the devastating penalties of a prison conviction whereas being afforded diminished constitutional protections ought to count on, and this Court docket would require, substantial compliance with the Division of the Navy’s urinalysis program,” enchantment choose Navy Capt. Brian Mizer wrote within the ruling overturning Hirst’s conviction.
“That didn’t occur right here.”
The gunny pleaded not responsible at trial in April 2022 and was initially convicted, decreased in rank to sergeant and sentenced to 90 days within the brig.
That conviction was based mostly on a purported constructive check for the unlawful drug MDMA that occurred following the July 4th vacation in 2021.
A lab physician testified that the drug degree present in Hirst’s urine “was so low that he might not have felt the consequences of the drug,” and provided that low degree, the physician was unable to say whether or not Hirst’s alleged use of the drug was wrongful, in keeping with the enchantment courtroom ruling.
Within the September enchantment courtroom’s overturning of the conviction, Mizer recounted the recurring, widespread and shoddy practices of the Navy urinalysis lab at Nice Lakes, Illinois, that dealt with Hirst’s pattern.
The Marine employees sergeant who oversaw the urine pattern processing on the time, referred to in courtroom data solely as “SSgt. D.W.,” conceded throughout trial testimony that paperwork discrepancies had been “sloppy” and trusted “how lazy I [was] that day.”
“It’s been very irritating from our perspective when a shopper says I didn’t do that, I’d not do that, after which we begin pulling the string and we see there are issues with the drug program,” Hirst’s civilian protection lawyer, Bethany Payton-O’Brien, informed Navy Instances.
Proof introduced in courtroom confirmed a sample of negligence each on the a part of the substance abuse management officer, SSgt. D.W., tasked with getting Hirst’s urine pattern to the testing lab, in addition to the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory at Nice Lakes, Illinois, that processed the pattern.
Discrepancies famous whereas SSgt. D.W. was in cost and through the time that Hirst’s pattern was processed “totaled greater than 31 pages,” Decide Mizer wrote.
“Among the containers despatched to the [Great Lakes drug screening lab] had been lacking the urine samples listed on SSgt D.W.’s paperwork, some contained the fallacious Unit Identification Code, some had tamper-proof seals that had been damaged, different specimens had two seals, signatures and dates had been lacking, among the paperwork was lacking completely, containers had been improperly packaged, the initials of some Marines didn’t match these on the pattern, there have been inadequate samples, there have been discrepancies within the initials of the purported observers, and there have been discrepancies with the DoD identification numbers on the labels of among the samples,” the choose wrote.
In Hirst’s case, his urine pattern was despatched to the lab on August 3, 2021, 28 days late by the usual of the Marine Corps’ Urinalysis Program Coordinator’s handbook. The handbook instructs these dealing with the urine to abide by a 48-hour window from assortment to transport the pattern out.
The conduct of the lab additionally fell into query.
One of many lab technicians dealing with urine samples was suspended for 3 days in July 2021, shortly earlier than Hirst’s pattern arrived, for “improperly pouring samples” containing MDA, which led to false detrimental check outcomes.
The drug on the core of the lab technician’s suspension was MDA. MDA is a relative of the drug MDMA, for which Hirst was initially convicted of utilizing.
Different workers at Navy Drug Screening Laboratory Nice Lakes had been discovered to have been careless with delicate supplies within the years main as much as Hirst’s wrongful conviction.
All informed, 18 lab technicians at Nice Lakes had been decertified between April 2017 and August 2023, in keeping with paperwork supplied to Navy Instances by Payton-O’Brien.
Technicians had been decertified for a litany of causes associated to improper conduct, together with:
-reporting false constructive drug outcomes.
-incorrectly labeling steroid batches.
-failure to conduct correct high quality management.
-making essential errors throughout pattern evaluate.
-failure to observe evaluate standards.
-failure to know evaluate protocol.
-signing different worker’s names on necessary paperwork.
-deliberate destruction of necessary paperwork.
-demonstrating patterns of careless work.
-mishandling samples.
A number of of the technicians had been decertified greater than as soon as, however seem to have continued working on the lab after their preliminary decertification, in keeping with a listing of decertified techs supplied by Payton-O’Brien.
“Most of the army practitioners are oblivious,” stated Payton-O’Brien. “They don’t know that the drug lab is having these points. They don’t learn about these de-certifications.”
It stays unclear simply how widespread such urinalysis program failures are, or whether or not anybody on the Nice Lakes lab has been held accountable for such errors.
Via the course of Hirst’s enchantment listening to, eight fellow Marines spoke of his excessive character – he rescued a Marine from warmth exhaustion whereas evading Taliban fireplace – and described him as “superman” and as a Marine Corps rock star.
A number of additionally testified that they had been with Hirst through the July 4, 2021, weekend earlier than the urine pattern was collected, and didn’t observe him taking any medication or seem like on any medication.
One Marine lieutenant colonel described Hirst’s braveness underneath enemy fireplace through the 30-day battle for Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010, which resulted within the gunny receiving a Navy-Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a “V” machine for valor.
Riley Ceder is an editorial fellow at Navy Instances, the place he covers breaking information, prison justice and human curiosity tales. He beforehand labored as an investigative practicum pupil at The Washington Publish, the place he contributed to the continuing Abused by the Badge investigation.
