LAPDOG HERALD COMES TO SAENZ'S RESCUE ON AVERTEST

By Juan Montoya
Reading today's story in the Brownsville Herald on the drug-testing procedure to which all first-time offenders in Cameron County District Attorney's  Pre-Trial Diversion Program are subjected, you'd think it was written by that office's public information officer.
The salient facts and specifics of the humiliating procedure established by Luis Saenz's office for the participants are fudged over and obscured. Instead, we have Saenz promoting his for-profit drug-testing even on defendants whose offenses have nothing to do with alcohol or drugs and should not even have been made to submit to a drug test.
What does Saenz – who apparently missed the class which teaches that there is a presumption of innocence before you assume someone's guilt – say about mandatory testing for defendants the PTD with non-drug related offenses?
"Even though the charge may not be drug-related, like theft, the offender may have been stealing to fuel their drug habit," Saenz said.
 In other words, the state is going to assume that someone is guilty of drug abuse as a basis to make them undergo mandatory drug tests?
Of course, this will result in a mandatory $17 charge, three times as much as the regular $5 charge for similar testing through the probation office.
And just how random is random?
Defense attorneys have charged that there is nothing random about having a defendant report 365 days a year, and be subjected to numerous orders to come in – where ever they may be working in the county – and have a urinalysis performed.

 One attorney whose client had been subjected to the Avertest "random" drug testing reported that the incentive to test seems to be economical, rather than prevenbtive.

"During the past 8 days (my female client) has had to report for the "random" drug test 4 times with each test coming out negative," he wrote Asst. D.A. Rene Garza, liaison with Avertest.

"This is a lady who works full time on the island and has had to drive to Brownsville each time to test. She lives in Laguna Vista. She states that she wakes up at 5 a.m. to call in so that she can go and drop her kids off early at school and then drive to the test center and try to make it to her job on time. Normally, she reports to probation in Port Isabel, but the closest center to test is 45 minutes away in Brownsville. Each test has cost her $20 with roughly $10 in gas each time she has to test.
"This 'random' drug testing is outrageous!!!! It would be interesting to see a tally of how many people call in on a given day and how many are called upon to go in and test. This drug company with its random policy is undoubtedly making a fortune off of the hard working people of our community.

"Your office holds tremendous power over the lives of ordinary, mostly poor, nonviolent first time offenders. (Why do I feel compelled to remind you of that over and over and over again?)," the attorney wrote.
And even though Tobin Leffler, the director of adult probation office for Cameron and Willacy counties says his officers are trained to conduct the drug-tests, Saenz is insisting that the commercial third-party company conduct them on those on PTD. Leffler says his officers are trained to stay in the same room as the defendant and observe them provide the sample.
In the case of Avertest, the method of testing is more intrusive and violates the defendant's privacy beyond an acceptable level, lawyers have told Asst. D.A. Garza.

Among other things, they charge that some of their female clients on the PTD agreement have been subjected to humiliating procedures that included having women "raise (their) shirt above her belly button in front of the person administering the test and then must take (their) pants and underwear down and pee with (their) back side to a mirror."

Additionally, the lawyer said the same client "stated that the person proceeded to look at and ask her about her tampon; even more insulting."

"Nothing changed," stated another attorney, "The horrors predicted (about Avertest) are all coming true. Please beam us up Scottie, no intelligent life found here."

In emails addressed to Garza, other attorneys charged that the "Draconian" manner in which the drug-testing program was being conducted was both humiliating and economically punitive to their clients on the first-time offender program.
"Your office holds tremendous power over the lives of ordinary, mostly poor, nonviolent first time offenders. (Why do I feel compelled to remind you of that over and over and over again?)," the attorney wrote.

"We know this was your baby, Renè," he wrote. "Which is why it is so maddening that you seem to be the one pretending not to realize the harm you are causing the people of our County, and you are the one who doesn't seem to understand basic principles of first year contract law, because if you did, you would know that you are materially breaching the contract of every single PTD that you are subjecting to this."