JUDGE: BLOOD TEST CANNOT BE USED IN CRASH CASE

RENO -- A judge's ruling in a fatal automobile accident may provide
an opportunity to test a law that allows motorists to be charged with
a felony if they have even trace amounts of drugs in their system.

The validity of that statute, which resulted in a conviction in a
highly publicized Las Vegas case, already is under attack in the
Nevada Supreme Court.

Washoe District Judge Brent Adams said Thursday that prosecutors
cannot use a blood test to prove a man had marijuana in his system
shortly before a car crash that killed a 17-year-old woman and her
infant in July.

Prosecutors said they probably will appeal the ruling, which damages
their case, and may file new charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Robert McKellips' pickup crashed into a car, killing Mayra
Ledezma-Martinez and her 5-month-old daughter, Jennifer.

McKellips, 20, told officers he had smoked one marijuana cigarette
the day before the accident. McKellips' lawyer, Scott Freeman, said
the blood test showed McKellips had only a small amount of marijuana
in his system and that amount could not have contributed to the
accident.

Defense lawyers have claimed the law is so broad and vague that a
person cannot know whether or not he is violating the law because
trace amounts of drugs can stay in the body for weeks.

A Las Vegas jury convicted Jessica Williams, now 22, on Feb. 16 of
six counts of driving with Ecstasy and marijuana in her body. She
crashed her minivan into a roadside youth offenders work crew March
19, 2000, killing six of them.

Her attorney, John Watkins, is challenging the state law under which
his client was convicted.