Bekendam, Stephanie Lynn

441 S.W.3d 295, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 960, 2014 WL 4627275
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 17, 2014
DocketPD-0452-13
StatusPublished
Cited by160 cases

This text of 441 S.W.3d 295 (Bekendam, Stephanie Lynn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bekendam, Stephanie Lynn, 441 S.W.3d 295, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 960, 2014 WL 4627275 (Tex. 2014).

Opinion

OPINION

MEYERS, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court

in which KELLER, P.J., and JOHNSON, KEASLER, HERVEY, COCHRAN, and ALCALA, JJ., joined.

Appellant, Stephanie Lynn Bekendam, was convicted of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. She appealed, claiming that the trial court erred in admitting the expert testimony of the Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) forensic scientist who tested the blood sample and issued the toxicology report. The court of appeals held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony. Bekendam v. State, 398 S.W.3d 358 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2013). Appellant filed a petition for discretionary review arguing that the court of appeals incorrectly applied the law for admissibility of expert testimony, misconstrued Rule of Evidence 702, and decided an important question of law that has not been settled. The State filed a cross-petition, claiming that the court of appeals failed to address its argument that Appellant’s error was not preserved for review.

We will hold that the issue was preserved for review and overrule the State’s ground. We will also overrule Appellant’s grounds for review and affirm the court of appeals.

FACTS

Appellant ran a red light and hit another vehicle. Appellant and the two occupants *297 of the other vehicle were injured and were taken to the hospital. An EMT and a nurse reported an odor of alcohol on Appellant’s breath, so her blood was drawn at the hospital and was tested for alcohol. No alcohol was detected. The State requested testing for drugs and the test was positive for cocaine. The DPS forensic scientist confirmed the results with a second test, which showed traces of both cocaine and a metabolite which can enter the bloodstream only by consumption of cocaine. 1 However, the toxicology report did not include the trace amount of cocaine because it was below the reportable cutoff allowed by DPS laboratory policy. The State called the forensic scientist to testify as an expert at Appellant’s trial. The defense filed a motion in limine, requesting that the trial court hold a hearing to determine the relevance and reliability of the expert testimony offered by the State. The trial court held a Daubert/Kelly hearing to determine if the expert testimony was admissible. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993); Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 573 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). At the hearing, the expert testified that Appellant’s blood contained cocaine at the time of the traffic accident. However, she stated that she did not include the cocaine in her toxicology report because the trace level was below DPS’s reportable cutoff point. The trial court found the expert’s testimony to be “reliable and relevant” and overruled the defense objection.

At trial, the expert testified before the jury that she saw trace amounts of cocaine in Appellant’s blood that were below the limit that she was allowed to report. The defense objected to the admission of the written toxicology report and to the expert’s testimony several times on the basis of relevance, but the trial court overruled the objections and allowed the expert to continue. The expert stated that the amount of metabolite she detected was large and' was consistent with a large amount of cocaine use or a habitual use of cocaine. She testified that, due to the short half-life of cocaine and the fact that it degrades in the blood tube, it was her opinion that Appellant would have had cocaine in her bloodstream at the time she ran the red light and caused the traffic accident.

The jury convicted Appellant of driving while intoxicated and sentenced her to twenty years’ confinement and ordered her to pay a $10,000 fine.

COURT OF APPEALS

Appellant appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in allowing the expert to testify that a trace amount of cocaine was present in the blood sample and that Appellant would have had cocaine in her bloodstream at the time of the collision. Appellant argued that the expert failed to follow DPS standards and procedures by testifying that she found trace amounts of cocaine in Appellant’s blood sample, and that the testimony was unreliable and irrelevant. The court of appeals reviewed the trial court’s decision for an abuse of discretion. The court of appeals considered the Kelly standards for admissibility of scientific evidence, focusing on whether the scientific technique was properly applied. Appellant’s argument was that the expert’s failure to follow DPS policy regarding reporting trace amounts of cocaine *298 resulted in an unreliable and irrelevant opinion and the expert did not explain why her failure to follow policy was still reliable methodology or based on facts that would be relied upon by experts in the field. The court of appeals disagreed and noted that the tests used to evaluate the blood sample, the EMIT and GCMS, were the scientific techniques applied by the expert. Bekendam, 398 S.W.3d at 363. Because the screening and confirmation tests are generally accepted in the scientific and judicial communities, the court of appeals determined that the trial court’s decision to allow the expert testimony was within the zone of reasonable disagreement. The court of appeals overruled Appellant’s issue and affirmed the trial court’s judgment. Id. at 363-64.

Writing for the dissent, Justice Walker stated that she would have held that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the expert to testify that she saw trace amounts of cocaine in an amount that fell below the level that is reportable under DPS standards. The dissent says that there is no distinction in the failure to follow the DPS policy and the failure to properly apply the GCMS technique at the time of testing. Id. at 367. The expert followed DPS standards in her written report and did not include the trace amount of cocaine, but then at trial, she was allowed to testify that the test showed an unreportable trace amount of cocaine, which she told the jury was proof that Appellant used cocaine not long before the blood sample was taken. The dissent points out that if a trace amount is too unreliable to be included in a written report, it is just as unreliable when presented verbally. Id. The State presented no evidence that GCMS test results of trace amounts of cocaine below the DPS reportable limit are reliable. Thus, the dissent says that the evidence should have been excluded and the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the expert to testify. Id.

Appellant filed a petition for discretionary review raising the following three grounds for review:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
441 S.W.3d 295, 2014 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 960, 2014 WL 4627275, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bekendam-stephanie-lynn-texcrimapp-2014.