There Was 4-Hour Delay In Taking Blood Sample From Justin Whaley At Wrong-Way Death Scene

  • Wednesday, September 25, 2019
  • Joseph Dycus

A Soddy Daisy police officer and his body camera provided some answers in the motion hearing of a former county EMT accused of vehicular homicide.

Early on the morning of July 3, 2018, Justin Whaley, 37, drove the wrong way on highway 111. His car crashed head-first into James Brumlow’s vehicle, killing Mr. Brumlow.

Defense attorney Lee Davis earlier argued for the dismissal of the blood draw results. In prior testimony, Whaley admitted to having a few drinks the night before, but denied being drunk. While police and EMS arrived on the scene within minutes, the blood draw was not conducted until four hours after they arrived.

Because of this delay, attorney Davis posited that the results were not admissible, since the alcohol level in his blood may have changed in the hours since the incident. Because of this, he said the prosecution was relying on extrapolated information to use the blood draw as evidence showing Whaley to be intoxicated during the accident.

Attorney Davis also pointed out that his client consented to the test immediately, and yet the test was not done until hours later. The attorney said Whaley “had no ability to preserve the evidence in his body. This puts a court in a speculative place.”

The prosecution argued against this, saying the authorities tried to conduct the blood draw on Whaley. However, the EMS personnel at the scene were uncomfortable with conducting the draw, as they said there could be a possible conflict of interest since they had previously worked together.

Jeremy Wright, the officer who took Whaley into custody, was grilled by prosecution and defense on the witness stand on Wednesday. He said he arrived on the scene a few minutes after 6 a.m ,which just so happened to be during a shift change.

“It causes some confusion on what the previous shift had already done, and what we needed to do,” said officer Wright. However, it soon became clear what he needed to do. After officer Wright directed traffic until a quarter of an hour before seven, he was told to read Whaley his Miranda rights and to take him into custody.

Officer Wright had previously testified the defendant was “acting appropriately for someone who was in a wreck,” a detail noted by the defense. The officer also said he arrived at the Soddy Daisy Police Department at 7:00, and spent the next 45 minutes typing up a search warrant. The nature of this warrant was a hotly-contested point between both sides.

While he was ordered to write a search warrant for reckless driving, officer Wright changed it to one for DUI. He said that while he was told to write a certain kind of warrant, the officer-of-11 years had the ability to change it if he decided to one for DUI.

Attorney Davis also asked why officer Wright did not do the breath test while he had Whaley in custody. Previously, the officer said he smelled alcohol coming from Whaley’s person when both were in the car. Officer Wright said that while he had the ability to conduct the breath test, he wanted to conduct a blood draw instead.

“At any point, you could have asked Mr. Whaley to submit to a breath test,” said Mr. Davis.

“Well, usually on serious cases, we go straight to a blood test, not a breath test,” said the officer, who said blood draws are more reliable, accurate, and can test for more substances. When questioned as to why he did not do both kinds of tests, the officer said he could not recall a time where he conducted both kinds of tests.

When attorney Davis asked the officer to define what constituted as a “serious” case, the officer answered by saying the result of the crash defined it. He said if someone who was possibly intoxicated were to just run off the road (but injured nobody), then a breath test would be administered. However, because a man was killed in the Whaley situation, it was considered a serious case.

Judge Barry Steelman also was shown body cam footage, which portrayed the officer taking Whaley into custody. In it, Whaley could be heard saying, “I don’t know how I ended up in the wrong lane.”

“I’m going to block anyone from seeing you in handcuffs, since I have a lot of respect for you,” said officer Wright to a handcuffed Whaley as he was walking the former EMT to the car.  

After the lengthy questioning, Judge Steelman asked the lawyers if they could agree upon another court date to continue with motions. A date of Oct. 29 was agreed upon.

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