TRIAL LOOMS IN DEATH OF TEXAS OFFICER

With a judge denying defense attorneys' second request for more time, jury selection begins Monday in a man's trial in the death of Beaumont police officer Lisa Beaulieu. Willie James McCray, 25, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of intoxication manslaughter, a second-degree felony. McCray is accused of being intoxicated when the car he was driving April 27 struck Beaulieu, knocking her off the Delaware Street overpass on Eastex Freeway.

The officer was taken to a local hospital with critical head injuries and died about 4 a.m.

Judge Layne Walker of the 252nd District Court has denied two recent requests from McCray's attorneys, Terrence Leon Holmes and Langston Scott Adams, to delay the trial. The defense attorneys have said they need more time to arrange expert witnesses, a situation they attributed to McCray's inability to pay the experts' fees.

In a Dec. 19 hearing, when Walker denied their first request for a continuance, the judge authorized the attorneys to spend up to $5,000 in public funds to hire expert witnesses. Presented with evidence that McCray was working at a Port Arthur restaurant and had bonded out of jail and retained attorneys, Walker disagreed with the defense attorneys' claim that their client was indigent and entitled to court-appointed defense experts.

The attorneys asked for appointed experts in toxicology, field sobriety testing and accident reconstruction. Individual fees required by the experts each exceeded Walker's $5,000 allotment. Unresolved on the eve of trial was the admissibility of the testimony of certain expert witnesses McCray's attorneys were able to secure. Court papers filed by prosecutor Wayln Thompson suggest Holmes and Adams waited until too close to the trial date to disclose their experts.

A list of potential prosecution witnesses filed by Thompson in December contains more than 40 names, including toxicology analysts, accident reconstruction experts and 18 Beaumont police officers. Jurors will be asked if they believe McCray was intoxicated and whether his intoxication caused the 36-year-old Beaulieu's death.

Breath tests taken about two hours after the wreck measured McCray's blood alcohol concentration at 0.073 percent and 0.079 percent, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. A blood sample taken closer to the time of the accident revealed a concentration of 0.10 grams of alcohol per milliliter, equivalent to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 percent. The legal limit for Texas motorists is 0.08 percent.

McCray's two-count indictment also charges him with reckless manslaughter, meaning jurors still could convict him if they doubted his intoxication, Thompson said. Reckless manslaughter also is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Beaulieu, a six-year Beaumont officer and the department's first female officer to die in the line of duty, was directing traffic around a motorcycle wreck when McCray's Chrysler Concord swerved onto the road's shoulder and struck her at about 1 a.m., according to investigators.

Officer accounts included in court papers indicate McCray told police he had worked until about 11 p.m. or 11:30 p.m. at a restaurant on Dowlen Road before playing pool at Fast Eddie's near the intersection of Dowlen Road and Phelan Boulevard. According to the accounts, McCray said he drank two beers before leaving the pool hall about 11:30 p.m. and dropping off a co-worker on East Lucas Drive.

McCray reportedly also told an officer he had smoked two joints of marijuana at about noon and drank "a 24-ounce Old English" about 2 p.m. In December, when asking for more time to prepare for trial, McCray's attorneys suggested the district attorney's office was devoting more resources to the case than other intoxication manslaughter prosecutions.

Specifically, Adams noted prosecutors had hired 6 Productions to film a crash re-enactment. District Attorney Tom Maness said working with the television production company was a first but that "the particular nature of the case demanded it." The office paid about $650 for the filmed recreation. Otherwise, Maness said, expenses and personnel devoted to McCray's prosecution were on par with similar cases.

If jurors convict McCray, they also will decide his punishment. On Sept. 1, 2007, intoxication manslaughter became a first-degree felony, punishable by up to life in prison if it involves the death of a peace officer, paramedic or firefighter. The new punishments do not apply to McCray's case.