Holly Bennett said she woke up from emergency surgery in 2022 to find a police officer standing over her hospital bed, writing her a ticket for cocaine possession. She had never used cocaine.
Bennett, 65, of Commerce City, said a colorimetric field drug test had flagged a crushed prescription pill in her purse as the illegal substance. Clearing her name took a year and a half, an independent laboratory test and a second mortgage on her home.
“The minute my eyes opened, I think he was moving towards me, and he said that he was writing me a ticket for cocaine possession,” Bennett said. “I said, ‘I don’t do cocaine.'”
Her case helped spark a first-in-the-nation law in Colorado. Gov. Jared Polis signed the measure into law on March 26, making Colorado the first state to restrict law enforcement’s use of the inexpensive colorimetric tests.
Under the new law, a colorimetric test result alone cannot be used as the sole basis for an arrest in a low-level drug case. Judges are also now required to inform defendants of their right to follow-up laboratory testing before accepting a guilty plea.
A 2023 University of Pennsylvania study found the tests produce false positives as much as 38% of the time and estimated that more than 750,000 people are arrested annually based on their results.
Bennett said she woke from surgery — where she had gone into septic shock and required emergency removal of an abscess from her neck — to find an officer approaching her bedside. Her attorney, Noah Stout, said a colorimetric test on a crushed pill found in her purse had returned a positive result for cocaine. The Boulder District Attorney’s Office told 9NEWS it ultimately dismissed the charge and had her record expunged.
“You know, when you are accused of something, legally, it can make you feel like you are wrong or you are bad,” Bennett said.
Bennett said she and her husband were forced to refinance their home and pull out cash to keep things going during the lengthy legal fight.
The new law does not apply to felony drug charges and does not prohibit the use of the tests entirely. Officers may still use colorimetric tests, but an arrest must be supported by additional evidence beyond the test result alone.
Source Yahoo News
Also
https://www.stoutlawco.com/post/holly-s-law-how-one-client-s-fight-changed-colorado-law
