By: Rachel Finkbeiner 1/15/16
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety recently announced that there were over 2,500 drunk driving arrests during this past holiday season. This was an increase from the same period 2014. As the arrest numbers rose, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has issued opinions recently throwing DWI laws into flux.
What Changed this Past Year:
The legal rights of an individual when being tested for alcohol were debated throughout 2015 in Minnesota. Back in October, the appellate court determined that police need a search warrant in order to test blood for alcohol due to the intrusive nature of the test. We wrote about this case here. In December, in State v. Thompson, the same became true for urine tests. Prior to these appellate court opinions, if an individual refused to submit blood or urine tests as part of a DWI investigation, it was considered a refusal, which is a crime in the state of Minnesota.
What Has Changed Now:
The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently determined that a search warrant allowing police to test specifically for alcohol in the blood of a suspected drunken driver also gives them the right to test for drugs, without any additional specification in the warrant.
In State vs. Fawcett, Fawcett crashed into another vehicle after running a red light. Police detected an odor of alcohol on the crashing driver, so they requested a search warrant to test her blood. The blood test came back negative for alcohol, but also tested for other substances and came back positive for marijuana and prescription drugs.
The search warrant in Fawcett’s case only specifically permitted testing for alcohol, therefore the Anoka County District Court concluded that it was unlawful to test for other substances. The state appealed and argued that once an individual has lawfully given a blood sample, then they have lost privacy in the test results from that sample. Fawcett argued that police cannot test blood samples in DWI cases beyond the scope of what a search warrant specifically entails.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed with the state. Once a blood sample has left the body, it does not require a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, testing a sample for drugs, in addition to alcohol, is not unreasonable.