Timothy Coates and I are the Supreme Court liaisons for this committee. Tim has been following the progress of Birchfield and the two cases consolidated with it. Tim prepared the following summary of today's SCOTUS opinion in these consolidated cases.
In Birchfield v. North Dakota, 14-1468 in an opinion authored by Justice Alito, and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Kagan and Breyer, the United States Supreme Court held that a breathalyzer test could be administered to a suspect arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) without first obtaining a warrant, because it constituted a valid search incident to arrest. However, the Court held that absent exigent circumstances, a blood test could not be performed on a suspect arrested for DUI without obtaining a warrant.
Birchfield arose from three separate cases involving criminal prosecutions for refusals to submit to testing to determine intoxication for purposes of an arrest for DUI. North Dakota made it a crime for a driver to refuse to submit to a blood test to determine blood alcohol levels. Petitioner Birchfield was arrested for DUI, refused to consent to a blood test, and was convicted under the statute. Petitioner Beylund was arrested for DUI, told he was required to submit to a blood test or face criminal penalties for failing to do so, and consented, with the blood test evidence later being used as a basis for suspending his license. Petitioner Bernard was convicted under a similar Minnesota statute when he refused to consent to a breathalyzer test after being arrested for DUI.
The Court held that the breathalyzer test was a valid search incident to arrest, and therefore did not require a warrant. As a result, states could validly impose criminal liability for refusing to submit to this minimally intrusive, constitutionally permissible search. The Court emphasized that the right to search incident to arrest was categorical, i.e. it does not depend on the circumstances of a particular case. It noted that the state interest in preserving evidence was high, particularly in the context DUI cases, and that the search was not intrusive.
In contrast, the court noted that drawing blood was a highly intrusive act, requiring piercing of the skin and that the government’s need to preserve evidence could not justify the invasion of the person without a warrant absent exigent circumstances. It was therefore improper for states to impose criminal penalties for refusal to consent to a blood test. In so holding, the Court emphasized that it was not calling into question state “implied consent” laws which impose civil penalties for refusal to submit to blood alcohol testing.
Critically, the Court rejected Justice Sotomayor’s suggestion in her partial dissent (joined by Justice Ginsburg) that the search incident to arrest doctrine was not categorical, and that the validity a search must turn on the facts underlying each individual case, including the relative ease of obtaining a warrant through ever improving technology. The Court also rejected Justice Thomas’s contention that the risk of dissipation of evidence inherent in DUI cases constituted a per se exigent circumstance that would justify both blood and breathalyzer tests without a warrant.