Case Title: Ex Parte Love

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1987-06-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
513 So. 2d 24 (1987)
Ex parte Kim Ray LOVE
(Re Kim Ray Love v. State)
86-128.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 5, 1987.
Rehearing Denied July 24, 1987.
Thomas B. Hanes of Hanes & Cotton, Birmingham, for petitioner.
Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Tommie Wilson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.
BEATTY, Justice.
This Court granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Criminal Appeals *25 was correct in approving the admissibility of a blood sample taken from the petitioner while he was not under arrest. Concluding that Code of 1975, § 32-5-190 et seq., does not provide the "exclusive means for admitting blood alcohol test results," that court held that such test results were admissible as evidence "when there is probable cause to believe the motorist was driving while intoxicated and exigent circumstances are present," even though the motorist was not lawfully arrested. 513 So. 2d 19.
The facts are reported in the opinion below. That opinion relates that, while the petitioner was told by a medical technologist that he "needed" to draw some blood, no evidence of consent to that procedure was shown, nor was there any factual indication that petitioner was incapable of consenting.
The tortuous history of legal intrusions upon the body for evidence of alcohol content is traced in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S. Ct. 1826, 16 L. Ed. 2d 908 (1966). In that case, the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the withdrawal of a blood sample from an objecting patient in a hospital who had previously been placed under arrest. Rejecting claims that this practice violated the petitioner's right of due process, his privilege against self-incrimination, and his right to counsel, that Court additionally held that the taking of this blood sample was not the product of an illegal search and seizure under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. We quote from pertinent portions of the discussion on that issue:
An analysis of Schmerber reveals that the Court proceeded "in the context of an arrest made by an officer without a warrant." The Court recognized the existence of probable cause "for the officer to arrest petitioner and charge him with driving an automobile while under the influence of intoxicating liquor." Yet the Court acknowledged that "the mere fact of a lawful arrest does not end our inquiry." Then it went on to find "special facts" in the nature of alcohol's diminishment in the human body which made the taking of the blood sample "an appropriate incident to petitioner's arrest." Nevertheless, the Court used cautionary language in summing up its decision: "It bears repeating, however, that we reach this judgment only on the facts of the present record," and warned that its holding "in no way indicates that it permits ... intrusions under other conditions."
In 1969, three years after the Schmerber decision was handed down, the Alabama legislature enacted the Alabama Chemical Test for Intoxication Act, 1969 Acts of Ala., Act 699, Reg. Session. Section 1(a) of that Act provides:
Section (c) deals with a refusal to submit to the test:
And, section (d) deals with the hearing afforded one whose driver's license has been suspended:
Coming, as it did, after Schmerber, and referring to the necessity for an arrest, this statute, at least inferentially, was an interpretation by the Alabama legislature of the mandate of that case. In fact, as late as 1983, when portions of the act were amended, the requirement of an arrest in the first instance, and other references to an arrest in successive provisions, were retained in the statute. Code of 1975, § 32-5-192, et seq.
According to the Court of Criminal Appeals, however, under Alabama law an arrest of the motorist is not required before extracting a sample of his blood "where there is probable cause to believe the motorist was driving while intoxicated and exigent circumstances are present." Moreover, that court concluded that "[c]ompliance with the act is not the exclusive means for admitting evidence of blood alcohol test results," citing Aycock v. Martinez, 432 So. 2d 1274 (Ala.1983); McGough v. Slaughter, 395 So. 2d 972 (Ala.1981); and Whetstone v. State, 407 So. 2d 854 (Ala. Crim.App.1981).
Having perused each of these cases, we respectfully observe that each of them dealt with the authenticity, i.e., the proper predicate to be laid, of the evidence of a blood sample for its admission into evidence. None of those cases, however, dealt with the legal authorization for taking the blood sample in the first instance.
Here, however, that issue is squarely presented by the repeated language of § 32-5-192 pertaining to an actual arrest. The question, then, becomes whether or not a lawful arrest, which presumes probable cause to arrest, is required to allow the blood sample to be later used as evidence, or whether subsequent use as evidence is permissible on a showing of only probable cause to arrest plus exigent circumstances, there being neither consent nor a valid search warrant in either case.
The Court of Criminal Appeals has cited a number of authorities in support of its decision that an actual arrest is not necessary when there is probable cause to believe the motorist was driving while intoxicated and exigent circumstances are present: State v. Heintz, 594 P.2d 385, 286 Or. 239 (1979) (existence of probable cause to arrest sanctioned taking of blood sample; *29 however, defendant was under "arrest" as defined by Oregon statute); State v. Oevering, 268 N.W.2d 68 (Minn.1978) (existence of probable cause to arrest sufficient (adopting rule of Cupp v. Murphy, infra)); Commonwealth v. Funk, 254 Pa. Super. 233, 385 A.2d 995 (1978) (probable cause to believe motorist driving while intoxicated); and United States v. Harvey, 711 F.2d 144 (9th Cir.1983) (following Cupp v. Murphy, infra) (blood sample taken from motorist incapable of refusing permitted without arrest).
And there are cases contra, e.g., Schutt v. MacDuff, 205 Misc. 43, 127 N.Y.S.2d 116 (N.Y.Sup.1954) (implied consent statute permitting blood sample at direction of police officer having reasonable grounds to suspect motorist of driving while intoxicated violated due process clause of state constitution for failure to contain provision providing for lawful arrest); accord, Holland v. Parker, 354 F. Supp. 196 (D.S.D. 1973).
We have also considered the editorial comments contained in 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 5.4(b) at 517-26 (1978). It is significant that not a single case cited by the court below, in disapproving the requirement of an arrest, involved a statute requiring a "lawful arrest." To the contrary, the court below appears to adopt as the law of Alabama the rationale of Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 93 S. Ct. 2000, 36 L. Ed. 2d 900 (1973), which held that the existence of probable cause to arrest, along with exigent circumstances, in and of itself justified the search of a suspect and seizure of scrapings of his fingernails. That decision did not involve a statute either, but was based upon an application of Schmerber, supra; Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S. Ct. 2034, 23 L. Ed. 2d 685 (1969); and the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
There is a sharp division among the jurisdictions having no statute requiring a "lawful arrest," as to whether probable cause to arrest is sufficient grounds on which to obtain a blood sample from a motorist under an implied consent law. While a discussion of the relative merits of each position would be interesting, and perhaps helpful if this Court was without its own guidelines, nevertheless, we are bound to consider the intent of our legislature in enacting statutes, and to give credence to the plain language utilized by that body. Ex parte Jones, 456 So. 2d 380 (Ala.1984). The intent of the legislature constitutes the law, insofar as the interpretation of statutes is concerned. Champion v. McLean, 266 Ala. 103, 95 So. 2d 82 (1957). And it is a fundamental principle that the legislature, in enacting a statute, is presumed to have had full knowledge and information on prior and existing law on the subject of a statute. Miller v. State, 349 So. 2d 129 (Ala.Crim.App.1977).
If the issue presented in the instant case had arisen under the federal constitution, and not under our state statute, perhaps the Cupp v. Murphy analysis, making probable cause to arrest sufficient, would be tenable. Or, in the absence of our statute's limiting language, we could justify the taking of the blood sample on the basis of a lawful arrest without a warrant, the basis of a lawful arrest with a warrant, or the basis of voluntary consent or other waiver. Cf. "Interpretation of Implied Consent Laws by the Courts," Traffic Institute, Northwestern University, at 25 (1972).
However, under the express terms of Alabama's implied consent statute, any motorist on the public highways automatically gives his implied consent to a test of his blood, among other things, only if he is lawfully arrested. The legislature did not prescribe any additional conditions which would equate implied consent, such as probable cause to arrest. Doubtless, this choice was intended to meet the legislature's concern for due process of law for the later possibility of the removal of the driver's license of the motorist.
Further, if the arrested motorist refuses to submit to the test, then, "upon the receipt of a sworn report" of the arresting officer "that he had reasonable grounds to believe the arrested person had been driving amotor vehicle ... while under the influence of intoxicating liquor" and had refused to submit to the test, the director *30 of public safety "shall ... suspend his license to dirve." And thereafter, upon such a suspension, a hearing is provided to "cover the issues of whether a law enforcement officer had reasonable grounds to believe the person had been driving a motor vehicle upon the public highways ... while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, whether the person was placed under arrest, and whether he refused to submit to the test." (Emphasis added.)
Clearly, the Alabama statute gives a procedural protection beyond that apparently mandated by federal decisions. The United States Supreme Court has indeed recognized that
Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291, 102 S. Ct. 2442, 2449, 73 L. Ed. 2d 16 (1982); accord, California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 103 S. Ct. 3446, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1171 (1983).
The implied consent law's repeated references to an arrest clearly manifest the legislature's balance of the interests represented: the state's interest in public safety and the individual's interest in personal liberty. In that connection, the observations of Justice Eager in Schutt v. MacDuff, supra, 127 N.Y.S.2d  at 126-27, are appropriate here:
We conclude that the requirement of a lawful arrest in the Alabama "implied consent" statute grants to the motorist in question a procedural right, and that the failure to accord that right renders the blood sample illegal for the purpose of its admission as evidence against the motorist who objects to its admission.
The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is reversed, and this cause is remanded to that court for an order consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
JONES, ALMON, SHORES, ADAMS and HOUSTON, JJ., concur.