Missouri Supreme reaffirms drunk driving arrest does not allow for warrantless blood test. The U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. McNeely, Docket 11-1425, decided on April 17, 2013, reaffirmed a citizen's right to be free from a warrantless search of his blood by the government for purposes of determining blood alcohol concentration in the absence of actual exigency. The government argued that in drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream alone constitutes an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant. The Court disagreed in a decision handed down by Justice Sotomayor. The government did not argue that under the facts set forth in McNeely's arrest that exigencies of the situation made the needs of law enforcement so compelling that a warrantless search was objectively reasonable. Had it done so the Court would have looked to the totality of circumstances in determining whether an exigency exited. In Schmerber v. California 384 US 757, the Court found a warrantless blood test reasonable after considering all of the facts and circumstances of that case and carefully basing its holding on those specific facts, including that alcohol levels decline after drinking stops and that testing was delayed while officers transported the injured suspect to the hospital and investigated the accident scene. In McNeely the government sought to go further and asked that the Court find that the natural dissipation of alcohol alone created an exigency. The Court declined to do so. |
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