SCOTUS allows warrantless blood draws of unconscious DUI suspects
By: Ed Treleven, The Wisconsin State Journal
WASHINGTON — On a day of politically charged decisions that made headlines, the U.S. Supreme Court also narrowly ruled in a Wisconsin case that most of the time, “exigent circumstances” allow police to draw blood evidence without a warrant from a suspected drunken or drugged driver when that person is unconscious.
The 5-4 decision in the Sheboygan County case of Gerald Mitchell will likely clear a logjam of similar cases that have been on hold in Wisconsin, including a drunken driving homicide case in Dane County that was charged in 2015. The state Supreme Court has been waiting to decide whether to accept another appeal, involving a man convicted of drunken driving in Sauk County, until after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Mitchell case.
In the Mitchell case, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the plurality that when police have probable cause to believe a person has been driving drunk, but is unconscious either because of a crash or the effects of alcohol and must be taken to a hospital for treatment, and before police have an opportunity to administer a breath test, “they may almost always order a warrantless blood test to measure the driver’s (blood alcohol concentration) without offending the Fourth Amendment,” which guards against unreasonable searches.
