Right of confrontation; Admission of blood-alcohol content (BAC) results; Lack of testimony from the lab technician who prepared the samples for testing; Distinguishing People v Lonsby & People v Dendel; Right to present a defense; Denial of request for a special jury instruction on potential inferences the jury could draw from defendant’s BAC results; Operating while intoxicated (OWI); Operating with a suspended driver’s license (OWSL)

Distinguishing this case from Lonsby and Dendel, the court held that defendant’s right of confrontation was not violated by the admission of his BAC results when the lab technician who prepared the samples for testing (N) did not testify but the forensic scientist who analyzed them (F) did. Further, he was not deprived of his right to present a defense by the trial court’s denial of his request for a special jury instruction. Thus, the court affirmed his OWI, OWSL, and having an open alcohol container in a vehicle convictions. The court noted the lab report itself was “testimonial in nature, serving as a declaration of the fact of defendant’s BAC at the time of his operation of the vehicle, and this evidence was presented at trial through [F’s] testimony. But [N’s] role in the preparation of [F’s] report was not testimonial. [F’s] report indicates that [N] merely catalogued the blood samples upon receiving them and checked the vials for breakage; [N] did not form, or participate in the forming of, any conclusions regarding defendant’s BAC. Unlike the reports at issue in Lonsby and Dendel, [F] was the sole author of the report admitted at trial and was available for defendant to cross-examine.” Further, F testified “that she had reexamined the samples of defendant’s blood herself to make sure they had been stored and labeled properly.” Thus, he was able to cross-examine F “on the issue of the proper handling and storage of his blood samples; cross-examination of [N] on that issue would have been unnecessary to preserve defendant’s right of confrontation.” He also contended “that his right to confront all individuals involved in the analysis of his blood sample is all the more important because of the closeness of his BAC result to the legal limit.” But he offered “no authority for the proposition that when a defendant’s BAC is near the legal limit, his right of confrontation extends to every person involved in the collection and processing of his blood samples, regardless of how tangentially they were involved.” The court also found no error in the jury instructions, concluding defendant failed to show “that instructional error occurred when the trial court instructed the jury according to the standard jury instruction” (M Crim JI 15.5).