WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor

and Judicial Proceedings Article defines "qualified person" as
being "a person who has received training in the use of the
equipment in a training program approved by the toxicologist
under the Postmortem Examiner's Commission and who is either a
police officer, a police employee, or an employee of the office
of the Chief Medical Examiner." The "equipment" referred to in
Section 10-304 is equipment used to test breath or blood for
alcohol content when the individual is accused of driving while
intoxicated or impaired.

I have been advised by the Department of Human Resources
that the laboratory technicians and analysts who perform the
paternity blood testing are not police officers, police
employees, or employees of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Furthermore, these technicians and analysts are not approved by
the toxicologist under the Postmortem Examiners Commission, but
rather operate under permits issued by the Laboratory
Administration of the Departmental of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The result would be to bar paternity blood testing, because no
paternity blood testing technician or analyst could meet the
definition of a "qualified person" as proposed in this bill.

The Department of Human Resources has, therefore,
reluctantly requested that I veto House Bill 1404, and has
pledged to work with the sponsors next year to reintroduce the
bill without this unintended technical error.

For the above reasons, I have decided to veto House Bill
1404.

Sincerely,

William Donald Schaefer

Governor

House Bill No. 1404

AN ACT concerning

Paternity Proceedings - Blood Test - Presence
of Laboratory Technician

FOR the purpose of "permitting the results of a blood test to be
admitted into evidence in a paternity proceeding without the
presence of a laboratory technician under certain
circumstances; requiring certain information in a laboratory
report in order to admit the results of a blood test into
evidence in a paternity proceeding without the presence of a
laboratory technician; providing that the results of a blood
test are admissible as substantive evidence in a paternity
proceeding under certain circumstances; requiring a State's

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