Mandatory DNA Testing in Louisiana?

NO. Unless you're arrested for a felony offense, you do  NOT have to voluntarily give a DNA sample for testing.

 

DNA analysis has come a long way since I was prosecutor in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1992 I successfully convicted a serial rapist in the first case in the Parish of Caddo using  DNA evidence. At that time only, only one or two other parishes had used DNA evidence because the science was still fairly new.

So new that very few state crime labs were qualified to evaluate and testify about DNA evidence. We had the analysis and testimony p by an expert from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. In order to ensure the admissibility of the evidence and the qualifications of the expert, I spent several hours laying a foundation.

 

As I recall, the probability that the DNA evidence would match anyone else was less than 1 in 1 billion. At that time, the FBI wouldn't analyze any more if probability went beyond 1:1 billion. That makes sense, there aren't even a billion people living in America. According to the United State Census there approximately 316,000,000 in the United States as 2013.

 

There are only about 300,000 in the Parish of Caddo, but we didn't rely on the DNA evidence only. We also had eyewitness testimony and fingerprint evidence. So likelihood that anyone else could have committed the crime with a positive identification, fingerprint match and DNA match in Caddo Parish was astronomically improbable.

 

Of course, NOW DNA evidence is consider the gold-standard. Fortunately, many people who were wrongfully identified have now been released. Unfortunately, DNA evidence can also be rock-solid evidence of guilt.

 

Legislation is sweeping across the nation with nearly half of the states currently requiring the pretrial collection of DNA samples from individuals who are arrested for various crimes but not yet convicted.

SIX Louisiana Cities Have the Highest Healthcare Costs in the Nation!

Louisiana should pass a similar statute enacted in Texas in which only the actual PAID medical expenses are reimbursable in a tort action. Presently the incurred expenses, even if  not actually paid, are reimbursable (unless Medicaid paid the costs).

 

We ALL know that often what was incurred is never actually PAID. If there were some way to curtail pre-litigation expenses, then perhaps we would see a quicker resolution to cases.

 

Often a  plaintiff, with a minor soft-tissuei njury, will see a chiropractor for several months incurring a bill of $5000 to $10,000, to be paid at the conclusion of the case. We KNOW that these bills are likely discounted significantly, but presently the insurance companies are required to pay the entire cost of INCURRED EXPENSES.

 

Recently, I had  case in which a plaintiff went to a chiropractor AND a physical therapist, often on the SAME DAY, getting the same treatment. I am not sure it rises to the level of fraud, but it certainly seems VERY close. I could hire an expert to review the costs of treatment, but he cannot testify about whether the treatment was necessary; only if the costs were reasonable.

This may be worth doing in some cases, but by the time we hire the expert, evaluate the costs, report his findings then we have incurred additional defense costs. That does not even get us to the trial stage, where  we may have to call the expert to testify.

 

For a case that probably should settle for UNDER $15,000 for four months of treatment with chiropractic treatment, settlements may be more than $20,000 just because the medical costs are so high. Even though many of the costs are for duplicative treatment, they were INCURRED COSTS.

 

I am certain that if the plaintiff or her attorney Actually PAID those costs, then the expenses would NOT have  incurred. This problem bleeds over into the overall cost of health care in Louisiana.

 

SIX out of the TOP TEN cities in the nation with the highest healthcare costs were from Louisiana. Rebecca Catalanello, of The New Orleans Times-Picayune, reported:

Six of the 10 most expensive places to buy health care in the nation are in Louisiana, including Metairie, Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

That’s according to a new Institute of Medicine study that attempted to examine geographic differences in health care spending among Medicare, Medicaid, privately insured and uninsured populations.

With Louisiana near the top of many of the country’s "worst of" health lists — asthma, diabetes, heart disease, obesity — it could be tempting to credit this distinction to our state’s particularly unhealthy population. But the study, which was commissioned under the terms of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, found that differences in traditional, fee-for-service health care spending exist in spite of age, sex and health status.

Jonathan Skinner, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, who has studied variations in health care spending for years, said that Louisiana has several strikes against it, even when studies like this one control for poverty, race and health status.

Besides having an incredibly unhealthy population, he said, individual patient care between hospitals and community clinicians is often fragmented, leading to high percentages of hospital readmissions soon after discharge. Louisiana also has a robust market for what he called "entrepreneurial home health providers" that clearly plays a role.

"To me," Skinner said of the study, "the spending differences are important, but what worries me more is that this is an indicator of poor care."

So What's the Big Deal About Texting and Driving? Okay, Maybe JUST Talking on the Cell Phone, Right?

Texting and driving seems to be fairly innocuous doesn't it? I mean, what's the big deal?

In 2010, The National Safety Council announced today that at least 28% of all traffic crashes – or at least 1.6 million crashes each year – involve drivers using cell phones and texting. NSC estimates that 1.4 million crashes each year involve drivers using cell phones and a minimum of 200,000 additional crashes each year involve drivers who are texting.

In 2011, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced a final rule specifically prohibiting interstate truck and bus drivers from using hand-held cell phones while operating their vehicles. Many of the largest truck and bus companies, such as UPS, Covenant Transport, Wal-Mart, Peter Pan and Greyhound already have company policies in place banning their drivers from using hand-held phones.

U.S. News and World Report covered a recent study by the National Safety Council. The study, conducted in partnership with Nationwide, shows that cell-phone-related car crashes are drastically under-reported, and that as many as 1 in 4 car crashes involve cell phone distraction. 

According to the NSC, the number of fatal vehicle crashes caused by driver distraction due to cell-phone usage could be much higher than many think – largely due to “coding errors” on the part of regulators. For example: Even when drivers admitted cell-phone use during a fatal crash, NSC’s analysis found that in almost half of such cases, the crash wasn’t coded in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatal Analysis Reporting System(FARS) to reflect the distracted usage of such devices.

One of the first questions asked of drivers and plaintiffs in trucking accidents is to identify their cell number and service provider. Then a subpoena is issued for the day of the accident. If you know the approximate time of the accident, or with GPS data, the exact time of the accident, then you can easily determine if your driver or the plaintiff was on the cellphone.

This can be a vital piece of evidence to determine the actual (or contributing cause) of an accident. NEVER, forget to obtain this information. Good or bad, you need to know.

So how bad, can it get? My friend and client, Mehdi Arradizadeh, Risk Director of Anderson Trucking Service, Inc. recently sent out an e-mail blast about the train collision in Madrid Spain: