Prosecution rests in Riga Township fatal crash trial
ADRIAN — Law enforcement personnel, hospital lab workers and doctors testified last week as the prosecution presented its case against a Blissfield man accused of causing a fatal crash while driving drunk and recklessly.
The case against William Michael Badger Jr. was expected to go to a Lenawee County Circuit Court jury today after the defense presented its witnesses. Badger's attorney, Patrick O'Keefe of Lansing, told Judge Anna Marie Anzalone he would call one or two witnesses after she rejected his motion for a directed verdict acquitting his client of the charges against him.
Badger, 51, is charged with operating while intoxicated causing death and reckless driving causing death. He was seen on police video shown in court taking responsibility for the crash that took the life of David Campbell, 78, of Blissfield on the afternoon of May 30, 2021. He was driving Campbell's wife's Lexus convertible when it crashed upside down into a deep ditch on the west side of Lipp Highway, just south of Ottawa Lake Road in Riga Township. They had just bought some liquor at a store in Blissfield after having had whiskey at the Campbells' home on Jipson Street in Blissfield, where the Campbells had been preparing for a cookout.
O'Keefe's argument is that the blood alcohol test conducted by ProMedica Toledo Hospital laboratory personnel on blood drawn from Badger by hospital emergency department staff after the crash cannot be relied upon for law enforcement reasons. That test showed Badger's blood alcohol content at 0.18, which is more than twice Michigan's legal limit of 0.08.
The prosecution's witnesses included two doctors, a nurse, a phlebotomist and a medical scribe who were part of the trauma team that treated Badger in the hospital emergency department; two lab technicians and the phlebotomy services manager from the hospital lab; the ambulance personnel who treated Badger on the way to the hospital; the Lenawee County deputy sheriff who was the first emergency responder to arrive at the crash scene and interviewed Badger at the hospital; members of the Lenawee County Accident Investigation Team; and neighbors who interacted with Badger on the afternoon of the crash and said he appeared to be intoxicated.
Deputy William Warner's testimony included about 40 minutes of video from his patrol car's dash camera and another 20 minutes from his body-worn camera. In the dash cam video from the crash scene, it shows Warner and two people who saw the crash trying to see if there was a way to get into the car and talking to Badger, who was in the car.
It was about 15 minutes before the first firefighters pulled up to the scene and about another three minutes before the flatbed wrecker arrived. Its chains and winch were used to lift the car's passenger side up to give firefighters room to remove Campbell and Badger from the car. The car's passenger side was on the side of the ditch furthest from the road.
"It seemed like an eternity before anyone arrived," Warner said, adding that it was a "helpless feeling" not being able to get into the car as it was wedged into the ditch. He said only about the bottom 10 inches of each door was visible.
Firefighters placed Campbell and Badger on backboards, then slid those across ladders to get them to the road.
Warner said he waited for accident investigators to arrive, then went to the hospital where he talked to Badger and his ex-wife, who had also just arrived at the hospital. In the bodycam video, Badger described what happened and more than once said it was his fault. He described telling Campbell to keep his head out of the water, that he couldn't reach him and he heard him take his last breath.
Badger said it was Campbell's idea to take the car out and "open it up" after they stopped at the liquor store. He said they went down Lipp Highway, stopped at a stop sign, then sped off, then hit the gravel part of the road and crashed.
When Warner asked Badger about taking a blood test, Badger said he thought the hospital had taken blood and that he should consult with a lawyer.
"I'll plead the Fifth on that one," Badger said, in reference to the Fifth Amendment protections again self-incrimination.
Warner said he was directed by his captain to ask the hospital about blood being drawn and was told that the sheriff's office could obtain a subpoena to get the blood test results. He said he did that through the Lucas County, Ohio, Prosecutor's Office. He said this was the first time he had a drunken-driving case where he had to deal with interstate issues. He said he didn't know if a search warrant to draw blood, which would be requested in cases where a suspected drunken driver refused a blood or breath test, would be valid in Ohio if it was issued by a Michigan judge.
O'Keefe asked Warner about his familiarity with the blood test kits supplied by the Michigan State Police. Warner said he had used them several times and he would have used the one he had in his patrol car had Badger agreed to a blood a draw.
O'Keefe also asked why Warner did not use the test that checks eye movement for signs of intoxication on Badger. Warner said he's been trained in that test, but that he "was old school" and never used that test, preferring to use other tests to check for intoxication.
Warner retired from the sheriff's office in July 2023 after 38 years in law enforcement.
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Austin Hall, who recently left the sheriff's office to run a family business, described the process he took as part of the county's Accident Investigation Team to calculate how fast the car was going when it started to go out of control. He said the calculations showed the car was going 70.08 mph.
Cpl. Keith Gorney of the sheriff's office said he examined the car's airbag sensor, or event data recorder, for the information it recorded in the last five seconds before the car came to rest. He said it showed the car was going 63 mph at the first impact. He said the speed limit at the crash site was 55 mph.
The phlebotomist and lab technicians described how blood samples are drawn in trauma cases and tested at the lab. Once drawn, the samples are divided into two vials for the different tests that are done to the blood. Those samples are then sent from the emergency department to the lab through a pneumatic tube system, similar to those used at a bank drive-thru, where the lab staff uses machines to prepare the blood for testing and conduct the tests. The container that holds the samples looks like a larger version of those used in bank drive-thrus. One of the lab workers is responsible for checking the test results to make sure they make sense and, if they don't, ordering the sample to be retested. The lab workers also described how frequently quality control tests are done on the testing equipment and how often they're cleaned.
Steven Vanderpool, the other person who witnessed the crash, offered similar testimony to that given by his girlfriend, Kasondra Robinson, on the trial's first day. They were outside their home on Ottawa Lake Road, just east of the Lipp Highway intersection, when they heard a noise that Vanderpool said was like the cropdusters that sometimes fly over the nearby farm fields. He said they the convertible was traveling fast enough southbound on Lipp that it appeared to be off the ground as it crossed Ottawa Lake Road. It then went out of control after it hit the gravel portion of Lipp and eventually went into the ditch. He described trying to help Badger and Campbell until firefighters and a tow truck arrived.
— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Prosecution rests in Riga Township fatal crash trial
