Blood Draw Procedures Defense 12th of
You got to be prepared, you got be prepared for bad answers.
“In the trail of cases he was alert and resourceful, never became disturbed” I think that’s a good word or confused “even when the unexpected settling took place”, 1903. How do I deal with it? When you get a bad answer, don’t belabor it, don’t react emotionally to a bad answer. Flip to a different subject. Now if you’re married, you’re probably good at shifting, Okay we’ll talk about it in the end, the art of shifting, shift subjects. I have these questions and if I get a bad answer I just shift to another subject, as if it didn’t happen as it I didn’t hear the last question. These are questions that the officer has only one response to. “Would it be accurate to say that you have performed the One leg stand and walked the line walk and turn hundreds of times”. Whoop. “Does the law state that a person has to perform the sobriety tests when stopped by the police?” No. “Did you inform the defendant they did not have to perform the field sobriety tests?” No, I’m going to go through by 10 of these question just so that you know that you get a bad answer be prepared to jump to a different subject.
“Can you determine how much a person has had to drink from the smell of their breath?” No, would you agree that the law in Texas is that a person is intoxicated if they do not have their normal mental physical faculties” “Training your talk that a 150 pound male eliminates about one beer per hour?” 12 ounce kind of beer has same alcohol as a 6 ounce glass of wine or 80 proof liquor once ounce? Would you agree that drinking coffee does not sober a person? Exercise does not sober a person? Shower does not sober a person? I’m going through these quickly but these are the things you have at your disposal. Would you agree that at the scene, you questioned the defendant before you read him as Miranda Rights? You are not going to arrest him because of his driving? That’s an automatic folks.
Once you have made your decision to arrest, can you question them about “what they had to drink?” You see? They are asking those question they haven’t arrested your client yet. When you stopped your police car, did you pull about 3 feet to the left? When you approached your client’s car you point your flash light in his vehicle? We’re talking about would you agree your police flashlight has a halogen bulb, were you aware of this the halogen bulbs are very intense and these flashlights are not what you get at home depot folks, they blind people. Take down lights on a car. Explain what a take-down light is. Your car is equipped with driver side spot light, so we got to take down light a spot light, these are high beam, intense beams that blinds people. When they get out of the car, they sit with them probably get out of the car well sure they did you’re blinding my client. Was the driver side door spot light on? It normally is. Where did you point that spot light? Right at the door. Would you agree that the intensity of the spot light is equal to that of the high beam of the car? The operator of a vehicle must dim the light 500 feet before approaching traffic my client was about 25 feet you blinded it. Now folks sometimes during testing these take down lights are still on, keep aware of that, “is driving a simple or complicated test? I only answer this question if the driving look good. Complete a complicated test.
“Can you determine how much a person has had to drink from the smell of the breath” Okay now those questions, those are just standard, open up the can, every DWI case and then you have to adjust to your own case.
Essential Links; The Judge discussed a non-biased Jury. What does biased mean to you? Sometimes I’ll ask a Jury that question. What does this have to do with cross examination? You had to set up your cross examination during void dire. Is anyone in a position at work where you evaluate other person’s performance? Mean you’ll get 2 or 3 and then I’ll say “Do you evaluate both what a person does right as well as what they do wrong?” “Sure we do”. Now what am I doing here, I’m setting up a fact that the police officer only writes down what the officer does wrong and then you save that for the final argument and you put the pieces of the puzzle together at the end. When you discuss this case with your fellow Jurors, you’ll evaluate both sides. You may perhaps discuss why the officer chose only to write a report regarding what my client did wrong?
This is final argument which you set up during void dire. I’m going to end with this.
“In your face versus a suggestion” This is about a trial; whatever strikes the mind of a Juror as a result of his own observation and discovery, always makes the strongest impression upon him and the Juror holds onto his own discovery with a greatest tenacity and after come, possibly to be the exclusion of any other fact in the case. This is about a trial, you lay the facts out there, and you eliminate the damage and give the Jury credit for being smarter than you think they are, okay? Thank you very much!
