Posted on 01/09/2013 10:39:07 AM PST by Theoria
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case testing whether police must get a warrant before forcing a drunken driving suspect to have his blood drawn.
The court has long held that search warrants are ordinarily required when government officials order intrusions into the body — intrusions like drawing blood from an unwilling individual. The court has reasoned that such intrusions amount to a bodily search and thus are covered by the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. But the court has also ruled that there are exceptions to that requirement in what are called exigent situations — emergencies. And Wednesday's case tests how broad the definition of an emergency may be.
The case began in Missouri in 2010. Tyler McNeely was driving 56 mph in a 45 mph zone at 2 a.m., when he was stopped by state highway Patrolman Mark Winder. The officer administered four field sobriety tests. McNeely failed all of them, and when he refused to submit to a Breathalyzer test, he was arrested and taken to a hospital, where he also refused to allow his blood to be drawn. Although Winder had gotten warrants in the past without difficulty in such situations, he did not try to get one this time. He ordered the blood drawn. It showed a blood alcohol level well above the legal limit, and McNeely was charged with driving under the influence.
At trial, though, the judge threw out the blood test because it was obtained without a warrant. The Missouri state Supreme Court unanimously agreed, noting that there were no events that would have interfered with getting a warrant — there was no accident to investigate, no injury requiring medical attention, and a judge was on call to review a warrant application quickly. The state court said that under these circumstances, there was no justification for failing to get a warrant before forcing an unwilling suspect to have his blood drawn.
The state of Missouri appealed, contending that because alcohol dissipates in the bloodstream over time, that alone constitutes an emergency situation that justifies forcing a blood draw without a warrant.
"Our main point is that under the exigent circumstances exception, when we know for certain that important, reliable, evidence is in the process of being destroyed, a search warrant is not necessary because, during any delay to obtain a search warrant, you are allowing the best evidence of the crime to dissipate and be destroyed," says John Koester, assistant prosecuting attorney for Cape Girardeau, Mo. The state also maintains that in these circumstances, a warrantless blood draw is "a minimal intrusion."
But Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union, representing McNeely, counters that alcohol dissipates over a matter of hours, and that here, where there was no emergency that could have interfered, a warrant could have been quickly obtained.
The arresting officer testified that he had never had problems getting warrants in the past. In fact, he testified that the only reason he didn't get a warrant was that he had seen an opinion from the state prosecutor's office saying that they were unnecessary in routine cases. That contradicted an opinion from the county attorney's office and a state police legal advisory.
The ACLU's Shapiro explains the reason for the warrant this way: "For the police to order medical professionals to put a needle into your arm and take blood is a fairly significant ... intrusion on your privacy and your bodily integrity. And that ought not to be a decision that the police are making without review by a judge."
Indeed, he observes, warrants can and were obtained in other cases in a half-hour or less, and a majority of states do require such warrants. He also notes that McNeely's refusal to agree to the blood test can have adverse consequences for the accused, since the refusal can be used as evidence against him at trial.
The Obama administration, however, backs up Missouri in its contention that the need for quick blood-alcohol testing outweighs any individual privacy interest. Time, the government argues, is of the essence, since a person's blood alcohol starts to dissipate after he or she stops drinking.
The government notes that in 2010, more than 10,000 people were killed in motor-vehicle accidents that involved alcohol-impaired drivers. That is one death every 51 minutes.
Laz, for many years I've read your comments and most always appreciated the sense and the sentiments.
But not on this thread.
The wife of the Colts owner tried this approach and lost. You're better off just taking your lumps, pleading guilty to DUI and losing the license for 3-6 months, which is bad enough.
And as far as fighting the DUI in court? Good luck with that. They charge you with 2 things. IIRC, one is impairment, the other is the violation of the alcohol statute, so that if they don't get you on one, they'll get you on the other.
They do this so that people can't try and discredit the breathalyzer, and skate on a lesser charge.
Thank you. I hope the officer got fired. Good for you not letting him get away with it. Hope you got your money back. Of course you don’t get compensated for the time it cost you but at least it makes the police think twice before falsely accusing people.
“And as far as fighting the DUI in court? Good luck with that. They charge you with 2 things. IIRC, one is impairment, the other is the violation of the alcohol statute, so that if they don’t get you on one, they’ll get you on the other.”
You are correct; one is based upon “impairment,” for which the BAC test result can be “prima facie” evidence of impairment. The other charge is to simply have that much alcohol on your breath. It’s not based on blood, but breath, and there is a statutory presumption that whatever you tested is what you were when you were driving, so long as the test is done within 3 hours.
As you might guess, I am an attorney; I spent 18 years as a prosecutor and now do defense work. As a practical matter, all the jury cares about is the number. They want to hear what the test was. If you think about it, it’s what they’ve been conditioned to accept based on news stories. Whenever you hear anyone being arrested for DUI, the first thing everyone looks for is that number. If I recall correctly, Nancy Irsay blew a .17.
I was living in Indy at the time and it was a big stink, because she had access to the big-time lawyers and could pay for the best defense.
She still lost.
Imagine losing your license for a whole year.
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