Read Online Steeped in Blood by David Klatzow - Free Book Online
Authors: David Klatzow
Tags: Steeped in Blood
Ads: Link
to win a case or two and then come back to discuss the matter with him.
It was around the same time that an attorney came to see me on the way home from court. He was accompanied by Advocate van Nieuwenhuizen, who was interested in my work. Shortly afterwards, I started receiving instructions from the attorneys who had briefed him. One of these was Nick von Wesel from the law firm Cliffe Dekker & Todd (now Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr). Between Von Wesel, Van Nieuwenhuizen and me, we were briefed on around 100 cases of drunken driving, and we won all of them. Thanks to the total intransigence of the state over alcohol testing, I was comfortably kept in business for the first two years of practice.
Criticism was received from far and wide, and at one point I even had the organisation Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD) publicly criticising my role in helping drunken drivers to get off the hook. The reality, of course, was that I was not making the law, but simply taking advantage of it. The state’s stupidity kept me alive for a good few years, and I started to earn a reputation for finding the loopholes. All we had to do was ask a few pertinent questions of the state prosecutors regarding the taking of blood samples. Their charts and graphs would mean nothing when the blood sample could not be guaranteed to be sterile.
The state hated me. General Lothar Neethling, who headed up the police forensic laboratory, in particular despised me. We were adversaries for many years, and he always used to say to me, ‘Klatzow, I can’t wait to get you in a witness box. I will crush you!’ But, sadly for him, he never did.
Apart from the problems with blood testing, the police periodically made some other mistakes in their zeal to arrest drunken drivers. I was involved in one such case, in which Nick von Wesel had developed a malignant tumour of the parotid gland (one of the salivary glands near the ear). A mutual friend, Grant Kassner,had removed the tumour, but there was some facial-nerve bruising, as often happens in such cases. Nick ended up with a surgical Bell’s palsy, which caused the left-hand side of his face to droop. It also made him slur his words and meant that he had a problem with his balance.
One day, while on his way home from work, Nick was stopped by the traffic police for a minor offence. The traffic officer took one look at him and immediately arrested him for driving under the influence. He was taken away, and at the forensic laboratory he was examined by the young district surgeon. Of course, there was no case for drunken driving.
Some time later, Solly van Nieuwenhuizen and I were in court on another drunken-driving case. Who should be the district surgeon who had been called to give evidence? None other than the same one who had examined Nick. She was being particularly stubborn, and would not concede that unsteadiness on the feet could be caused by a wide variety of conditions, of which inebriation was only one. State officials, as I had learnt, rarely make any concessions in court. The district surgeon took refuge in technical terms and kept referring to the positive Rhomberg sign, which is just another fancy name for being unsteady on the feet.
Van Nieuwenhuizen asked her to demonstrate the Rhomberg sign. She called for the court orderly, but the legal counsel insisted that she use the instructing attorney – Nick von Wesel. Of course, Nick swayed around like a branch in a storm, and the district surgeon had to concede that there may indeed be other reasons for unsteadiness on the feet!
According to law, blood samples taken within two hours from the commission of the crime will be presumed to be an accurate measure of the blood alcohol at the time of the crime. But what happens if there are two conflicting blood test results within the two-hour period?
A young man had attended his work office party and, afterconsuming vast amounts of punch, was on his way home in his father’s Mercedes-Benz. As luck
It was around the same time that an attorney came to see me on the way home from court. He was accompanied by Advocate van Nieuwenhuizen, who was interested in my work. Shortly afterwards, I started receiving instructions from the attorneys who had briefed him. One of these was Nick von Wesel from the law firm Cliffe Dekker & Todd (now Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr). Between Von Wesel, Van Nieuwenhuizen and me, we were briefed on around 100 cases of drunken driving, and we won all of them. Thanks to the total intransigence of the state over alcohol testing, I was comfortably kept in business for the first two years of practice.
Criticism was received from far and wide, and at one point I even had the organisation Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD) publicly criticising my role in helping drunken drivers to get off the hook. The reality, of course, was that I was not making the law, but simply taking advantage of it. The state’s stupidity kept me alive for a good few years, and I started to earn a reputation for finding the loopholes. All we had to do was ask a few pertinent questions of the state prosecutors regarding the taking of blood samples. Their charts and graphs would mean nothing when the blood sample could not be guaranteed to be sterile.
The state hated me. General Lothar Neethling, who headed up the police forensic laboratory, in particular despised me. We were adversaries for many years, and he always used to say to me, ‘Klatzow, I can’t wait to get you in a witness box. I will crush you!’ But, sadly for him, he never did.
Apart from the problems with blood testing, the police periodically made some other mistakes in their zeal to arrest drunken drivers. I was involved in one such case, in which Nick von Wesel had developed a malignant tumour of the parotid gland (one of the salivary glands near the ear). A mutual friend, Grant Kassner,had removed the tumour, but there was some facial-nerve bruising, as often happens in such cases. Nick ended up with a surgical Bell’s palsy, which caused the left-hand side of his face to droop. It also made him slur his words and meant that he had a problem with his balance.
One day, while on his way home from work, Nick was stopped by the traffic police for a minor offence. The traffic officer took one look at him and immediately arrested him for driving under the influence. He was taken away, and at the forensic laboratory he was examined by the young district surgeon. Of course, there was no case for drunken driving.
Some time later, Solly van Nieuwenhuizen and I were in court on another drunken-driving case. Who should be the district surgeon who had been called to give evidence? None other than the same one who had examined Nick. She was being particularly stubborn, and would not concede that unsteadiness on the feet could be caused by a wide variety of conditions, of which inebriation was only one. State officials, as I had learnt, rarely make any concessions in court. The district surgeon took refuge in technical terms and kept referring to the positive Rhomberg sign, which is just another fancy name for being unsteady on the feet.
Van Nieuwenhuizen asked her to demonstrate the Rhomberg sign. She called for the court orderly, but the legal counsel insisted that she use the instructing attorney – Nick von Wesel. Of course, Nick swayed around like a branch in a storm, and the district surgeon had to concede that there may indeed be other reasons for unsteadiness on the feet!
According to law, blood samples taken within two hours from the commission of the crime will be presumed to be an accurate measure of the blood alcohol at the time of the crime. But what happens if there are two conflicting blood test results within the two-hour period?
A young man had attended his work office party and, afterconsuming vast amounts of punch, was on his way home in his father’s Mercedes-Benz. As luck
Similar Books
