A DUI criminal defense attorney for a Lake County judge facing trial for drunken driving and resisting arrest challenges the blood-alcohol test and hospital procedures. The night that Chief Judge David Hall was pulled over by Vernon Hills police, his blood-alcohol level was .107.

Zeit claims that an unknown law enforcement officer violated Hall's rights under the federal HIPPA privacy law by instructing hospital staff on how to process the blood sample.

Hall, charged with driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest on April 26, 2008 in Vernon Hills, was in court to pursue records from Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville for his defense.

Hall's trial had been scheduled for today, but Zeit requested a continuance because he said that an expert witness, an emergency room physician, could not attend.

Brown is overseeing the trial and the Illinois attorney general's office is handling the prosecution because of Hall's close ties to the Lake County state's attorney's office and judges.

In August 2008, Hall testified during a hearing in Kane County court that he had been drinking alcohol on April 26, but said he didn't do anything to prompt a Vernon Hills officer to stop him about 1:45 a.m. on Illinois Highway 60.

Officer Jesse Goldsmith, who stopped Hall, died of a heart attack in June 2008. Goldsmith completed much of the paperwork and likely would have been the key prosecution witness at trial. But anything he would have testified to, including anything in his reports, could now be inadmissible.

Another police officer, Mark Sosnoski, who backed up Goldsmith from a different vehicle, is expected to testify during the upcoming trial. Sounds like hearsay.