PORTLAND – Evidence that Robert LaPointe’s blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit when his speed boat crashed into a smaller boat and killed two people last summer will be heard at his trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Superior Court Justice Robert Crowley also determined there was probable cause for the blood-alcohol test done on LaPointe just after midnight on Aug. 12, 2007.

The judge also denied a request from LaPointe’s defense team seeking to delay the trial or move it because of media coverage that created a “climate of hostility” against the defendant. The judge said he’d revisit that request on the first day of the trial next month when the jury is picked.

LaPointe appeared in Cumberland County Superior Court for the hearing Wednesday with his three lawyers. He declined to offer his reaction to the judge’s decisions.

LaPointe, 39, of Bridgton, Maine, and Medford, Mass., has pleaded not guilty to two counts of manslaughter, four counts of aggravated operating under the influence and one count of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon.

His boat, a Sunsation Dominator, slammed into a smaller craft on Long Lake on the night of Aug. 11, 2007, killing Terry Raye Trott, 55, of Naples and Suzanne Groetzinger, 44, of Berwick. LaPointe’s boat was traveling at a high rate of speed when the wreck occurred, officials said.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Boston lawyer J. Albert Johnson called Robert Zettl of Colorado, a blood-alcohol test expert who has testified in courts all over the country.

He called the state’s analysis of LaPointe’s blood-alcohol content “inaccurate” and not scientifically valid because 34 hours and 21 minutes passed before the blood was received by the state lab. During that time it was not refrigerated, which can allow bacteria to grow and harm the sample, he said.

Maine’s regulations call for blood samples to be sent off “promptly,” and 34 hours is “not within the spirit of that regulation,” Zettl said.

Also, only one blood sample was used, not enough to get an accurate determination in the analysis method used: retrograde extrapolation, Zettl testified. Three blood samples should be taken, each one hour apart, he said.

Because the blood was not refrigerated, and because not enough samples were taken, “all you can say is alcohol was consumed,” Zettl testified.

But during cross examination by Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson, Zettl acknowledged that when he worked for the state of Colorado, 70 percent of the drunken driving blood samples were sent to the lab through the mail, were not refrigerated and sometimes arrived days after they were taken.

“Wouldn’t that mean that most of Colorado’s test results were unreliable?” Anderson asked

“I can’t answer that,” Zettl said.

Testifying for the prosecution, a state chemist said steps taken to conclude that LaPointe’s blood-alcohol level was 0.11, higher than the legal driving limit of 0.08, were the norm, are considered reliable and acceptable nationwide. A second analysis confirmed the same blood-alcohol content from a test taken at a hospital Aug. 12.

State chemist Stephen Pierce said blood samples are often not refrigerated and chemicals are used to prevent bacteria from growing in the samples.

Pierce’s report concluded that LaPointe’s blood-alcohol content was between 0.11 and 0.15 at the time of the crash. The amount LaPointe said he drank did not match the blood-alcohol content, Pierce testified, leading the chemist to conclude that LaPointe under reported how much he drank.

Defense attorney George Hassett asked the court to rule that there was no probable cause for a blood test after the crash.

The judge disagreed, saying there was ample support for probable cause: The defendant operated a boat at a high rate of speed and the boat came to rest 160 feet into the woods after the crash; he told officials he had been drinking; alcohol was smelled on his breath; he initially refused to take a blood test, and at the hospital LaPointe “gestured to a nurse that she draw her own blood and substitute it for his,” Crowley said.

The trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8 in Portland.