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			Driver expected to agree to plea

                                      BY JAY WEAVER 
                                      jweaver at herald.com 

                                      A notorious drunk-driving crash that
took the life of a high
                                      school honor student is expected to
end today with the
                                      teenage driver's guilty plea agreement
with prosecutors,
                                      according to sources.

                                      Carla Wagner is facing up to 25 years
in prison on DUI
                                      manslaughter charges in the June 1
accident. Helen Marie
                                      Witty was roller-blading home in
Pinecrest when Wagner's
                                      car veered off the roadway and crushed
her against a tree.

                                      If the plea deal is accepted by
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge
                                      Roberto Pineiro this morning, Wagner,
now 18, is likely to
                                      receive a much lighter sentence,
sources said. The plea deal
                                      was not disclosed Monday.

                                      But if the deal falls through,
Wagner's attorneys will attack
                                      as unreliable the state's tests on her
blood-alcohol content.
                                      They will argue the results should not
be admitted into
                                      evidence at her trial, scheduled to
start Monday.

                                      Attorney Richard Sharpstein and his
wife and co-counsel,
                                      Janice Burton Sharpstein, will try to
persuade Pineiro to
                                      throw out all the blood samples
because of the way they
                                      were taken, handled and preserved.

                                      ``In my 25 years as a lawyer, I have
never seen as many
                                      problems with blood evidence as I have
in this case,'' said
                                      Janice Sharpstein.

                                      Police said Wagner, a student at
Carrollton School of the
                                      Sacred Heart, was speeding along Red
Road in her new
                                      silver 2000 Audi A4 last June. When
she tried to make a
                                      cellphone call, she veered off the
road and rammed into
                                      Witty, a 16-year-old Palmetto High
sophomore, as she
                                      skated along a bike path.

                                      Wagner, her parents and the
Sharpsteins have been trying
                                      to negotiate a plea agreement with
prosecutors and Witty's
                                      parents during the past week. But at a
brief hearing Monday,
                                      no deal was struck.

                                      Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney
Michael Gilfarb called
                                      it ``a false start.'' More progress is
expected today.

                                      But if there is a hitch, the
Sharpsteins are hoping to
                                      handicap the state attorney's case by
limiting Wagner's
                                      damaging blood-alcohol evidence.

                                      The Sharpsteins are going to attack
the blood-alcohol
                                      samples taken by paramedics at the
scene and later at
                                      South Miami Hospital, where Wagner was
treated after the
                                      crash. They also will try to attack
their admissibility because
                                      a county toxicologist who analyzed the
tests is dying of
                                      brain cancer and cannot testify.

                                      Prosecutors remain confident that the
tests will be admitted
                                      by Pineiro, saying that the evidence
is critical. The samples
                                      taken at the scene by paramedics
showed Wagner's
                                      blood-alcohol level was .09, just
above the state's .08
                                      standard for drunk driving. The
samples also showed she
                                      had been smoking marijuana.

                                      Those taken at the hospital, one hour
after the crash,
                                      showed her blood-alcohol level at .08
and traces of pot.

                                      ``I believe all of that evidence will
be allowed,'' said Gilfarb,
                                      declining to comment further. 

                                      Legal experts said that even if the
county's forensic blood
                                      expert, Richard Maclure, cannot
testify, his procedures,
                                      results and analysis may be perfectly
scientific to be
                                      admitted as evidence.

                                      If his analysis of blood samples taken
at the scene is not
                                      admitted, prosecutors can fall back on
his evaluation of
                                      samples taken at South Miami Hospital.
The reason: They
                                      claim the hospital took samples of the
blood for medical
                                      reasons -- not for law enforcement.

                                      If it had taken them for
investigators, the results could not be
                                      used against Wagner in her criminal
trial.

                                      ``Ideally, the state would prefer to
get the blood withdrawn at
                                      the scene admitted as evidence,'' said
Nova Southeastern
                                      University law professor Mark Dobson,
noting that a driver
                                      involved in an accident with injury or
death must submit to a
                                      blood test, if requested by
authorities.