The intoxication-manslaughter trial of Kendall Batchelor began Monday with a marathon ninehour stretch to whittle a pool of 200 potential jurors down to just 12 and four alternates.
Late in the day, the prosecution and defense also presented opening statements in the 451st state District Court, where Batchelor, 23, is being tried on the second-degree felony after being accused of driving her pickup into oncoming traffic June 2, hitting and killing David John Belter.
Originally 450 potential jurors were notified by mail after Batchelor’s defense team last week unsuccessfully sought a change of venue in Judge Kristen Cohoon’s courtroom. The defendant is the daughter of auto magnate Ken Batchelor.
From 8 a.m. to nearly 5 p.m., both the prosecution and defense attorneys narrowed down the nearly 200-person jury pool that arrived at the Kendall County Courthouse that morning.
After lunch, Batchelor’s defense attorney, Louis D. Martinez, questioned a room of 100 remaining potential jurors, asking anyone who’d heard of the case to raise their hands. Each had been assigned a number Thirty-six of the numbers were raised.
“As you might imagine, it’s very rare that we come into a case where many people have heard of the case,” Martinez said.
However, only six residents said their minds were made up on Batchelor’s guilt or innocence, and they could not be swayed during the trial.
“It’s hard for me to believe there’s only six people who’ve heard about this case and already made their mind up,” Martinez said.
As Martinez’s questions continued, seven said they couldn’t consider the minimum two-year punishment for a second-degree felony, and 24 said they couldn’t consider probation as a punishment should Batchelor be convicted.
Just before the 12 jurors and four alternates were identified, Cohoon spoke to the room about the role of a jury.
“It is the function of a jury in this trial to define the facts,” she said. “I am not permitted to influence your evaluation of the presentation of facts.”
Cohoon called herself the “conductor” of the trial and urged the jury not to consider her motions, rulings or facial expressions as evidence.
The jury includes seven men and five women, with two men and two women named as alternates.
Cohoon swore them in just before 5 p.m., marking the longest voir dire — a legal term for jury selection — in the short history of the 451st.
She warned the group to avoid any outside influences regarding the case and banned discussions of the trial outside of the jury room, which otherwise could be grounds for a mistrial.
“If you’re at home and a news article comes in, you are to turn it off,” Cohoon said.
No testimony was heard Monday, but Cohoon called on both the defense and prosecution to outline their case and strategy during opening statements.
Assistant District Attorney Manuel Cardenas detailed for the newly impaneled jury what he believed happened the night of Belter’s death.
“On June 2, 2022, he (Belter) made a fatal mistake. He chose to go to work. (But) he wouldn’t make it to work that day,” Cardenas said. “The day the defendant who killed him, earlier that day she was at the Ken Batchelor dealership.”
Cardenas said the young woman then went to a liquor store – where she made an unknown purchase – before making several stops in Boerne.
Cardenas said Kendall Batchelor bought two beers a the Cibolo Creek Brewery before heading to The Richter Tavern at 7 p.m., where she purchased two cocktails and three shots and paid $1,000 to become a private member.
Then, Cardenas said, Batchelor arrived at Peggy’s On the Green by 8 p.m. and bought another cocktail and shot.
The prosecutor claimed Batchelor was intoxicated in the parking lot of Peggy’s by 9:15 p.m., where she planned to drive to her friend’s house on Texas 46.
However, the defense offered a different account.
“A trial is a story,” Martinez said. “The reason I say it’s a story is because the 12 of you weren’t there. (The two witnesses) weren’t there. But at the end, the 12 of you get to decide what happened.”
Martinez said evidence will show Batchelor met with a friend for dinner and drinks and it didn’t involve “drinking fast” or “pounding shots.”
Rather, Martinez painted a picture of Batchelor simply not realizing her level of intoxication despite efforts to pace her alcohol intake.
When leaving Peggy’s On the Green, Cardenas said Batchelor drove erratically down the state highway to her friend’s house, hitting speeds up to 90 miles per hour and slowing down to 40, after taking a “convoluted path” down Main Street to 46.
Cardenas said evidence will show Batchelor passed her friend’s street by some distance – a friend he noted she’d known for many years – before turning around. It was on her way back down the state highway that the deadly crash took place.
Martinez told the jurors video evidence from the restaurants during the night would not show “someone intoxicated.”
Cardenas, however, noted a blood draw from Batchelor four hours after the accident indicated a blood-alcohol level of .124 — well above the legal limit of .08.
The trial, which is expected to last two weeks, resumed Tuesday and today, and will continue again Monday.
'A trial is a story,” Martinez said. “The reason I say it’s a story is because the 12 of you weren’t there. (The two witnesses) weren’t there. But at the end, the 12 of you get to decide what happened.'
— Louis D. Martinez, Batchelor’s defense attorney
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