Eugene Kelly Wolfenberger v. State, 03-13-00494-CR

Background

Defendant Eugene Wolfenberger, a veteran with PTSD and alcoholism, struck and killed a motorcyclist at night on August 22, 2010, then fled the scene and went home. He admits hitting the motorcyclist but contends he was sober at impact and binge-drank afterward while suffering PTSD-related memory gaps.
Police arrested Wolfenberger at his home about an hour after the collision; a nonconsensual blood draw was taken (per Texas Transportation Code) and tested at BAC 0.30.
At trial the State presented an accident-reconstruction expert concluding the defendant hit the motorcycle from behind while speeding; the defense offered a mechanical expert disputing that analysis.
The defense theory at trial was that the defendant was sober at the time of impact, fled due to PTSD, then drank heavily at home; defense counsel did not move to suppress the BAC result or assert privilege for treatment statements.
The jury convicted Wolfenberger of intoxication manslaughter and assessed 20 years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine; the Third Court of Appeals affirmed.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Ineffective assistance for failing to move to suppress nonconsensual blood draw	Trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for not challenging the warrantless blood draw under McNeely	Counsel reasonably declined to litigate unsettled law and admission of BAC fit the defense theory; no prejudice shown	Court held counsel not deficient given unsettled Texas law and offered strategic rationale; no prejudice because other evidence of intoxication remained
Admissibility / privilege of statements to treatment providers (Housewright, Chintapalli)	Statements made during treatment were privileged under Tex. R. Evid. 509(b) and should have been excluded	Defendant failed to raise timely privilege objections at trial; State contends statements were not privileged	Issue not preserved on appeal (no proper trial objection); court overruled the claim
Sufficiency of evidence of intoxication at time of crash	BAC and witness statements did not prove intoxication at the time of the collision	State points to BAC .30 (drawn ~1 hour later), officer observations, and treatment-provider statements; jury may infer intoxication	Court found evidence legally sufficient when viewed in light most favorable to verdict; conviction affirmed
Whether McNeely required counsel to object post-decision	McNeely created a clear Supreme Court rule requiring suppression of warrantless blood draws when a warrant reasonably could be obtained	State argued McNeely’s import for Texas’s mandatory-blood-draw statutory scheme was unsettled and litigable; Texas precedent unsettled	Court treated the interplay between McNeely and Texas statutory scheme as unsettled for purposes of deficiency analysis and declined to find deficient performance

Key Cases Cited

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-part test for ineffective assistance: deficient performance and prejudice)
Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013) (warrantless nonconsensual blood draws not per se justified by natural dissipation of alcohol; exigency is totality-based)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for legal sufficiency review: evidence viewed in light most favorable to verdict)
Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (deference to jury credibility/weight determinations in sufficiency review)
Menéfield v. State, 363 S.W.3d 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (appellate courts should not find deficient performance where conduct could be sound trial strategy and trial counsel has not explained)
State v. Bennett, 415 S.W.3d 867 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (counsel not ineffective for failing to act on unsettled legal question)
Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966) (discusses exigent-circumstances analysis for blood draws)
Michel v. Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91 (1955) (presumption that challenged counsel actions may be sound trial strategy)