The trial of Kendall Batchelor, 23, last month set many records in the 451st state District Court in terms of evidence and time spent on a case, and the lead prosecutors in the case said it took a village – the county and district attorney’s office – to reach the finish line.
Batchelor was convicted of intoxicated manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison after drunkenly driving the wrong way down Texas 46, hitting and killing Boerne resident David John Belter.
While achieving the max sentence for Batchelor was feat enough for the prosecutors, the trial set many records for the young district court, including the longest jury selection process, longest trial, most evidence presented to a jury and the greatest number of witnesses called in a trial.
“In situations like this, it often is not the first time that somebody is driving while intoxicated – it’s often not the first alcohol-related offense,” Assistant District Attorney Gretchen Flader said during a “Boerne Brew” interview with Boerne Radio 103.9 FM. “We had Investigator Billy Hunt with our office and Kristal Reser, who is a discovery clerk, just went to town on this case. They scoured her records. They scoured her phone for any and everything that they could find. And they found a lot.”
Both Flader and the other lead prosecutor on the case, Assistant District Attorney Manuel Cardenas, said a lot of the success of their case came down to the handwork down to the work of these investigators, clerks, law enforcement officers and victim advocates both in the courthouse and outside of it – even getting assistance from staffers in other jurisdictions.
In fact, had it not been for the support of outside agencies and Hunt and Reser, some of Batchelor’s previous charges may never have come to light during trial.
During the trial, it was announced Batchelor had received five citations for being a minor in possession of alcohol starting when she was 15. However, there is no record of these citations to be found.
It was the research of county staffers going through Batchelor’s photos where she documented all of her citations – something Flader noted was used as a bragging point for Batchelor – that led to prosecutors fleshing out the drunk-driver’s extensive run-ins with officers.
Leading up to the trial, more than 85 people are subpoenaed as potential witnesses to testify on behalf of the state. By the time Batchelor’s sentence was handed down, 60 had approached the stand – a record in the 451st.
Flader said Victim Coordinate Liz Jimenez was instrumental in managing the sheer volume of witnesses.
“Liz Jimenez in our office is the person who has to call all of these people, give them an estimate of what time they should be here (at the courthouse), coordinate where she’s going to put them,” Cardenas said. “I cannot imagine how many phone calls Jimenez had to make, and there was even a day Kristal (Reser) had to make all those calls. But we got people here.”
Cardenas said Department of Public Safety Trooper Marcus Sauer – who’s based out of San Marcos – and Kerr County Deputy Luke Flores both helped pull and sift through piles of data pulled from both Batchelor’s Ford F-250 infotainment system and her phone data.
The prosecutors said the ability to pull this kind of data and manage it successfully is a resource currently lacking in this slice of the Hill Country, but Cardenas expressed gratitude to those who helped and said Flores is working to get a data lab up and running to allow local lawyers to better investigate on their own.
In all, the prosecutors showed more than 500 images of Batchelor since she was about 13 or 14 years old until months before she was booked in the Kendall County jail last year, showing a history of drinking and driving and reckless behavior.
Further, Cardenas said this data is what allowed the prosecutors to track Batchelor’s movements the night of the fatal wreck, showing her trip to a liquor store before her three stops at local restaurants for drinks.
It wasn’t just those involved with investigating the charge against Batchelor that led to the successful prosecution, according to Flader and Cardenas, but also the willingness of citizens to take their time to participate in both testifying and sitting on a jury panel.
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