Davis' Defense Slams Blood Alcohol Tests as 'Sloppy' at Trial
Posted
Aaron Organ-aorgan@timesuniononline.com
ALBION – Tears streamed steadily down Donna Anderson’s face for most of the first day of the trial for the man accused of the car crash that killed her daughter in March 2010.
Seated in the front row of a Noble County Courtroom gallery, flanked by family and feet away from her late daughter’s now-accused then-boyfriend, Anderson quietly wept throughout the proceedings that relived the March 2, 2010, nightmare that saw 22-year-old Victoria Lynn Anderson killed when a car driven by then-34-year-old Samuel Davis Jr. slammed passenger-side-first into a tree, crumbling the small sedan so extensively a passerby couldn’t tell a passenger was even inside the wrecked vehicle. Pictures of the scene presented to witnesses during testimony were all that broke her composure, each set reactively breaking Anderson down with grief.
Davis, now 36, of 3762 W. Old 30, Warsaw, is facing charges of causing a death by driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of more than 0.15 percent, causing a death by driving with cocaine in his system, causing a death by driving with marijuana in his system – all Class B felonies – and Class C felony driving while intoxicated.
The trial was moved to Noble County after Davis petitioned for and was granted a change of venue earlier this year.
Inside Noble Superior Court Judge Robert E. Kirsch’s courtroom Tuesday, a jury was finally seated by 1:30 p.m. Tuesday after the pool was nearly depleted. Opening arguments followed an hour later.
The prosecution told the eight women and four men in the jury that a drunken and high Davis was driving the small green Saturn sedan that drove off the westbound Old 30 roadway and hit a tree near the intersection with CR 350W, Warsaw, just before 4:30 a.m. that early March morning.
Anderson was killed, with massive head and internal injuries suffered as a result of the crash.
Medics found Davis pinned behind the car’s steering wheel, and emergency crews cut him from the vehicle before he was airlifted to Fort Wayne’s Parkview Hospital with himself a head injury and in serious condition.
The prosecution said a Kosciusko County Fatal Alcohol Crash Team investigation and toxicology tests discovered Davis had been driving with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.25 percent – more than three times the legal limit. He also had marijuana and cocaine in his system, prosecutors said.
Those toxicology tests and blood draws, though, are inarguably flawed, Davis’ defense counsel told the jury, calling them “sloppy, questionable and incomplete.”
The state called first witness Renee Pickett, who had been on her way to work that late winter morning when something struck her and forced her to turn around and come up on the wrecked Saturn jarred into a tree off the roadway.
Picket said when she ran up to the sedan with a 911 dispatcher on the other end of her cell phone, she saw only Davis, who was “moaning and groaning” in the driver’s seat and regaining consciousness.
Pickett said she tried to open the vehicle’s doors, all of which were jammed closed, then worked to calm Davis and assure him help was on the way.
Then she walked to the passenger side of the sedan.
“There’s two people in here,” Pickett told dispatcher Jody Hand. “I don’t think she’s alive. She’s not moving at all.”
Hand traced Pickett’s cell phone and sent emergency personnel to the crash site. Two Kosciusko County Sheriff’s deputies testified about their roles at the scene that morning, telling the court they immediately noticed the odor of alcohol inside the vehicle as they tried to tend to Davis.
A medic testified that she, too, noticed a stench of alcohol on Davis’ breath as she worked on him. She told the court Davis asked repeatedly, “What happened?” and responded at one time to medics’ explanation, “No, I didn’t. We were just sitting there.”
A sheriff’s deputy ordered to get a blood draw from Davis said he had to read the applied consent clause to Davis three times inside the ambulance while Davis stared at the truck’s ceiling and did not speak.
Davis’ defense counsel focused his questioning of witnesses on Davis’ head injury, asking the medics and deputies if they were trained in diagnosing concussions and if Davis’ actions were consistent with concussion symptoms.
Anderson’s father - Don Anderson, of Lakeland, Fla. - testified to the court that he had spoken to his daughter just the night before, as she planned to move in with him in the coming weeks. The next morning, he received a phone call that said his daughter had been killed.
Davis appeared relaxed throughout the proceedings, laughing with his attorney during jury selection, speaking intently with counsel during questioning of witnesses and sitting stoic at times.
The Anderson family, conversely, rarely looked his direction, instead closely listening to each witness, and wiping away tears consistently. By day’s end, just after 5:30 p.m., they looked exhausted and defeated.
