I want to make sure we knock this one out perfectly as it's the first blood warrant trial in our county. Anyone have advice? I specifically need some good ideas for voir dire, and also, do you actually enter the blood itself, or just the test results?

We've got a one car accident, a citizen witness to the accident and the driver's intoxication level at the scene, and then our officer finds the driver at his house a few minutes later. We've already won a motion to suppress on the blood and the PC for the arrest.

BTW, it's a 0.26.

Check your e-mail in-box for longer response.

Long story made short: Check out Richard Alpert's book "DWI Investigation & Prosecution" (TDCAA/Beckham publishing 2004), especially pages 51-65, 115-30, & 160-64.

We've had mandatory blood draws, via warrant, in our county for several years and we LOVE it. On the relatively rare occasion we have to try such a dwi we usually do offer the entire blood kit into evidence piece by piece. Don't know that you really need to, but we do it anyway. My advice would be to get familiar with the steps for how the blood is taken, sent to the lab, etc. In my experience the defense lawyer tries to agrue that the test can't be valid because the blood is sent by mail, not refridgerated, it ferments in the tube and makes even more alcohol etc., etc. Visit with your chemist about these issues and he or she should be able to answer these questions so that even the dumbest juror can understand. Also, Alpert's book and the predicate questions manual are really helpful with some very good scripts for how to handle the phelbotomist and chemist.

Blood cases are fun because a good chemist can make the defense lawyer look really foolish if he's not careful. We don't try these cases too often just because there's usually not much of a defense if the stop is valid. Normally we only try these if the guy is a double enhanced felon and he just can't take our offer. In fact we got a 40 year sentence on one of these 2 weeks ago. He had 8 or 9 prior felony dwi's.

Mr. Alpert's book is indeed "the bible" of these types of cases. I'll be sending you an email a bit later tonight.