A Navy gunnery sergeant and Afghanistan war hero had his drug conviction overturned this fall by the Navy and Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals.

Sgt. Rory R. Hirst’s conviction was based on a urine sample that tested positive for an illegal drug.

But during the appeals process, the case against Hirst revealed troubling flaws in the way at least one urinalysis lab handled drug-tested service members’ samples.

A positive drug test result is a career killer for service members and can lead to a federal conviction, incarceration, and a dishonorable discharge.

Given the stakes, precision is a must in such situations, and Hirst’s court records raise questions about how at least one such lab is run.

“Sailors and sailors who face the devastating consequences of a criminal conviction while afforded diminished constitutional protections should expect, and this Court will require, substantial compliance with the Navy Department’s urinalysis program,” a wrote the appellate judge, Navy Capt. Brian Mizer. the decision to overturn Hirst’s conviction.

“That didn’t happen here.”

Gunoul pleaded not guilty at trial in April 2022 and was initially convicted, reduced to the rank of sergeant and sentenced to 90 days in jail.

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That conviction was based on an alleged positive test for the illegal drug MDMA that occurred after the July 4 holiday in 2021.

A laboratory doctor testified that the level of the drug found in Hirst’s urine “was so low that he may not have felt the effects of the drug” and, given that low level, the doctor could not say whether the alleged drug use by Hirst was illegal. , according to the decision of the court of appeal.

In overturning the conviction by the Court of Appeals in September, Mizer recounted the repeated, widespread and poor practices of the Navy’s urinalysis laboratory in Great Lakes, Illinois, which handled Hirst’s sample.

The Marine staff sergeant who oversaw the processing of the urine sample at the time, referred to in court records only as “SSgt. DW,” admitted during trial testimony that the discrepancies in the documents were “unintelligible” and depended on “how lazy (I was) that day.”

“It’s been very frustrating from our point of view when a client says I didn’t do this, I wouldn’t do that, and then we start pulling the strings and see that there are problems with the drug program,” Hirst’s civil attorney, Bethany Payton . -O’Brien, Military Times said.

Evidence presented in court showed a pattern of negligence on the part of both the substance abuse control officer, SSgt. DW, tasked with bringing Hirst’s urine sample to the testing lab, as well as the Navy Drug Testing Laboratory in Great Lakes, Illinois, which processed the sample.

Discrepancies were noted while SSgt. DW was responsible and during the processing of Hirst’s sample “totaled more than 31 pages,” Judge Mizer wrote.

“Some of the boxes sent to the (Great Lakes drug analysis lab) were missing the urine samples listed on SSgt DW’s documents, some had the wrong unit identification code, some had tamper-proof seals that were broken, other specimens had two seals, were missing signatures and dates, some documents were missing entirely, boxes were improperly packed, initials of some Marines did not match those in the sample, there were insufficient samples, there were discrepancies in the initials of the purported observers, and there were discrepancies with the DoD identification numbers from the labels of some of the samples,” the judge wrote.

In Hirst’s case, his urine sample was sent to the lab on Aug. 3, 2021, 28 days late, according to the Marine Corps Urinalysis Program Coordinator’s Manual. The manual instructs those who handle urine to observe a 48-hour window from collection to shipment of the sample.

The conduct of the laboratory was also discussed.

One of the lab technicians handling the urine samples was suspended for three days in July 2021, shortly before Hirst’s sample arrived, for “improper pouring of samples” containing MDA, leading to false negative results .

The drug at the base of the lab technician’s suspension was MDA. MDA is a relative of the drug MDMA, which Hirst was originally convicted of using.

Other employees at the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory Great Lakes were found to be careless with sensitive materials in the years leading up to Hirst’s wrongful conviction.

In all, 18 Great Lakes lab technicians were decertified between April 2017 and August 2023, according to documents provided to Military Times by Payton-O’Brien.

Technicians have been decertified for a number of reasons related to misconduct, including:

-reporting of false positive results for drugs.

-incorrect labeling of steroid lots.

-failure to perform adequate quality control.

-making critical errors during sample examination.

– non-compliance with the review criteria.

-misunderstanding the review protocol.

-signing the names of other employees on important documents.

-deliberate destruction of important documents.

-demonstrating sloppy work patterns.

-mishandling of evidence.

Several of the technicians have been decertified multiple times but appear to have continued working at the lab after the initial decertification, according to a list of certification techniques provided by Payton-O’Brien.

“Many of the military practitioners are forgetful,” Payton-O’Brien said. “They don’t know that the drug lab has these problems. They don’t know about these decertifications.”

It remains unclear how widespread such failures of the urinalysis program are, or whether anyone at the Great Lakes lab was held accountable for such errors.

During Hirst’s appeal hearing, eight fellow marines spoke of his high character – he saved a soldier from heat exhaustion while escaping Taliban fire – and described him as a “superman” and a star rock of the Navy.

Several also testified that they were with Hirst on July 4, 2021, the weekend before the urine sample was collected and I did not observe him taking any medication or he did not appear to be taking any drugs.

A Marine lieutenant colonel described Hirst’s bravery under enemy fire during the 30-day battle for Marjah, Afghanistan, in 2010, which led to his receiving the Marine Corps-Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a “V” device for valor.