Divided Court Strikes Down Law on Drunk Driving Blood Tests

Tony Mauro

The National Law Journal

04-17-2013

 Posted by New Jersey DWI Lawyer, Jeffrey Hark

A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a Missouri law that allowed police routinely to force drunk-driving suspects to give blood samples without a warrant and without consent.

A 5-4 majority agreed that the inevitable dissipation of alcohol from a suspect's blood could not be regarded per se as an exigency that would justify a blood draw without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment.

Over the years, the court has endorsed exceptions to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, including when destruction of evidence is imminent and police cannot wait for a warrant. The issue before the court was whether the natural dissipation of alcohol in blood was the kind of phenomenon that always justified proceeding without a warrant.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority, said no. But she cautioned that exigent circumstances still "may arise" that would allow drawing blood without a warrant, case by case. The court said that with advances in technology and procedures that allow police to obtain warrants quickly, police are not usually hampered by the need for warrants as they combat drunk driving. Most states, she said, now allow prosecutors to obtain warrants by phone, email or teleconferencing.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., writing for himself and Justices Samuel Alito and Stephen Breyer in a partial concurrence and dissent, chastised the majority for failing to give clear guidance on what the new rule is. "A police officer reading this Court's opinion would have no idea – no idea – what the Fourth Amendment requires of him, once he decides to obtain a blood sample from a drunk driving suspect who has refused a breathalyzer." These justices did agree, however, that warrants should be sought when possible.

In a separate concurrence, Justice Anthony Kennedy expressed the hope that "in due course may find it appropriate and necessary consider a case permitting it to provide more guidance than it undertakes to give today."

Justice Clarence Thomas was the only court member who said that a per se exigency rule was appropriate, because the natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood in effect results in "rapid destruction of evidence." Thomas wrote, "Even a slight delay may significantly affect probative value in borderline cases of suspects who are moderately intoxicated."

The ruling was a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union and its longtime legal director Stephen Shapiro, who argued for his first time at the high court on behalf of defendant Tyler McNeely. "We know from experience that drunk-driving laws can be strictly enforced without abandoning constitutional rights," Shapiro said in a statement. "Today's decision appropriately recognizes what half the states have already demonstrated – that maintaining highway safety does not require sacrificing personal privacy."

When a Missouri police officer stopped McNeely for speeding and weaving across the road, he refused to take a breath test. The officer then took McNeely to a hospital for a blood test. McNeely refused again, despite a warning that such a refusal automatically resulted in revocation of his driver's license The blood sample was taken anyway, revealing an elevated blood alcohol content level. At trial, he sought to suppress the blood results on Fourth Amendment grounds. The trial court agreed that the case did not present circumstances that would have made it impossible to obtain a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed that dissipation of blood alcohol was not, by itself, enough to justify a warrantless search.

Criminal Law — Drunk Driving

Published by New Jersey DWI Attorney, Jeffrey Hark.

http://www.harklawnj.com/new-jersey-dwi-lawyer/

 

14-2-9400 State v. Choi, App. Div. (per curiam) (13 pp.) Defendant, who was arrested for a variety of traffic offenses and pled guilty to driving while intoxicated, appeals the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence of his refusal to submit to a breath test, claiming that significant portions of the Korean translation of the standard statement, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.2(e), were incorrect and incomprehensible. The panel affirms, finding that the record supports the findings that defendant spoke English well enough to understand the standard statement in English, that he understood his unconditional obligation to give a breath sample, but he knowingly declined to give the sample, and that it was therefore unnecessary to determine the adequacy of the Korean translation of the standard statement (which was subsequently revised).

 

Drug Evidence found in the Warrantless Search

State v. Walker, A-49-11.

Posted by drig crime defense pawyer, Jeffrey Hark. http://www.harklawnj.com/

Smoking pot while answering one's front door, then tossing the evidence when seeing it's the police, creates probable cause to search under the plain-view and exigent-circumstances doctrines, the state Supreme Court says. The justices reversed an Appellate Division ruling that suppressed drug evidence found in the warrantless search in State v. Walker, A-49-11.

They stressed it was the defendant's own guilty behavior that gave the police authority.
"We do not suggest that, had no one come to the door, the mere smell of marijuana would have justified a forced entry into defendant's home," the court said.

Two Newark policemen came to Rashad Walker's Riverview Court apartment, part of a public housing complex, on a tip from a confidential informant that he was selling drugs. They could smell marijuana smoke. One officer was dressed in plain clothes in order to attempt to make a purchase. When Walker opened the door and saw the second officer's badge, he threw the joint into his living room and attempted to shut the door. The officers gained entry. In plain view, they found 22.4 grams of marijuana, 27 packets of heroin, 4.2 grams of cocaine, a scale and a razor.

After Essex County Superior Court Judge Stephen Bernstein denied his motion to suppress, Walker pleaded guilty to multiple drug offenses but preserved his right to appeal the motion denial. The Appellate Division reversed.At the Supreme Court, the state relied heavily on the reliability of the informant, who had provided valuable tips on at least 10 prior occasions.

The court said that was not enough to justify a warrantless search, but Walker's actions were.
"Although the information contained in the tip was uncorroborated, by the time the officers knocked at the door of defendant's apartment, subsequent events, created by defendant's own actions, established probable cause and exigent circumstances which justified an entry into defendant's apartment," wrote Judge Ariel Rodriguez for the court.

"Clearly, defendant must have been aware that the officers knew he was committing an offense," Rodriguez said. And once he threw the joint back into the living room and tried to shut the door, the officers "were compelled to act to prevent defendant from disposing of the marijuana cigarette, or eluding the officers."

Judge Mary Catherine Cuff did not participate in the otherwise unanimous decision.
Assistant Deputy Public Defender Amira Scurato, Walker's attorney on the appeal, says the ruling, being limited to its facts, "doesn't change the overall landscape regarding privacy in one's own house," she says.

Officials from the Division of Criminal Justice did not return a reporter's call