Opinion ID: 1179512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to Have Blood Sample Tested for Alcohol Level

Text: (9) Petitioner contends that counsel's failure to have the blood sample taken from him on the morning of his arrest tested for blood alcohol completely undermined his diminished capacity defense. His contention has merit. Neither trial counsel has provided any explanation for this failure, which is particularly inexplicable in light of the fact that the defense theory of diminished capacity relied entirely on alcohol consumption. Unfortunately, the blood sample no longer exists. A declaration by V. Parker Bell, a consultant in criminalistics, establishes that petitioner's blood-alcohol level at the time of the offense could have been estimated if the blood sample taken on June 7 had been tested for alcohol level. Bell states that if the sample had been tested and found to have contained even a trace of alcohol, it would indicate that the minimum blood-alcohol level at 8:30 the prior evening was approximately 0.22 percent to 0.30 percent. Significant prejudice resulted from this deficiency. The prosecutor relied heavily on the fact that there was no substantiation of petitioner's claim that he had drunk a sizable amount of alcohol on the day of the offense. The matter was exacerbated by counsel's failure to have obtained, transcribed and translated the tape recordings of petitioner's statements to Deputy Medina and Lieutenant Gutierrez in a timely manner. This was not done until Medina and Gutierrez had already testified for the prosecution, and Gutierrez had been allowed to state that petitioner said he had consumed in excess of six or seven beers. Although the translation of the statement revealed that petitioner had actually said that he had drunk much, much more than six or seven beers, counsel never challenged Gutierrez's testimony. Moreover, Gutierrez testified on rebuttal, without impeachment, that petitioner had told him he had consumed six or seven beers during the day. Petitioner had consistently told the doctors that he had drunk about 20-24 beers. The credibility of these statements was completely undermined by the inaccurate portrayal Gutierrez gave regarding petitioner's statement to him about the amount of beer he had consumed. The effect was devastating since the prosecutor used the conflict regarding the amount of beer to suggest that everything else petitioner had told the doctors was equally untrue. This in turn called into question the validity of the doctors' opinions since they necessarily depended in large part on the truth of petitioner's statements to them.