Prior the recent United States Supreme Court decision, Missouri v. McNeely, police officers did not even have to try to get a warrant before forcing people to take blood tests if they didn’t want to. Their longstanding justification for this act was that they did not want to wait to contact the judge and explain their constitutional basis for a warrant request because the alcohol in the person’s bloodstream was dissipating or being metabolized. For more information about California search and seizure issues, click here. The Court has now recognized that if an emergency exists which justifies not applying for a warrant, it must be determined on a case by case basis. Recognizing that time always transpires even while a suspect is being brought from the arrest scene to a blood drawing facility, the Court is now going to require police to obtain a warrant for a blood sample if it can be reasonably obtained.

Most Santa Rosa DUI attorneys will advise their clients to take a blood test rather than refuse it because the consequences of a refusal are severe compared to the benefits of the police not getting a chemical result. In addition, as noted by one Santa Rosa DUI lawyer, in his experience the description of the suspect and his/her behavior is curiously much worse in arrest reports where a suspected DUI driver refuses to take a breath or blood test. For more information about California DUI issues, click here.

The Court has basically ruled that if there is time to secure a warrant before blood is drawn, the police must exercise efforts to get one. If a police officer reasonably concludes that there is not sufficient time to apply for a warrant and receive one or he applies for one but does not receive a response, he may then force a blood test without a warrant. The Court has acknowledged in Missouri v. McNeely that situations will occur where anticipated delays in applying for a warrant will justify the taking of a blood test without acquiring a warrant. It is important to note that about half of the states already require warrants for blood draws which is different than California’s current process and they have not experienced any unusual difficulty in doing so. Justice Sotomayor, in speaking about the Court’s concern with the Fourth Amendment’s constitutional protection, said that this decision complies with “our recognition that any compelled intrusion into the human body implicates significant, constitutionally protected privacy interests.”