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Page Number: 18

14 

MISSOURI v. MCNEELY 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

justify a warrantless search . . . there must . . . be ‘no time 
to secure a warrant.’ ”  Post, at 6 (quoting Tyler, 436 U. S., 
at 509).  But THE CHIEF JUSTICE then goes on to suggest 
his  own  categorical  rule  under  which  a  warrantless  blood
draw  is  permissible  if  the  officer  could  not  secure  a  war­
rant  (or  reasonably  believed  he  could  not  secure  a  war­
rant)  in  the  time  it  takes  to  transport  the  suspect  to  a 
hospital  or  similar  facility  and  obtain  medical  assistance. 
Post, at 8–9.  Although we agree that delay inherent to the
blood-testing  process  is  relevant  to  evaluating  exigency, 
see  supra,  at  10,  we  decline  to  substitute  THE  CHIEF 
JUSTICE’s modified per se rule for our traditional totality of
the circumstances analysis. 

For  one  thing,  making  exigency  completely  dependent 
on the window of time between an arrest and a blood test 
produces  odd  consequences.  Under  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE’s 
rule, if a police officer serendipitously stops a suspect near 
an  emergency  room,  the  officer  may  conduct  a  noncon- 
sensual  warrantless  blood  draw  even  if  all  agree  that  a
warrant could be obtained with very little delay under the 
circumstances  (perhaps  with  far  less  delay  than  an  aver­
age  ride  to  the  hospital  in  the  jurisdiction).  The  rule 
would  also  distort  law  enforcement  incentives.    As  with 
the  State’s  per se  rule,  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE’s  rule  might
discourage efforts to expedite the warrant process because 
it categorically authorizes warrantless blood draws so long 
as  it  takes  more  time  to  secure  a  warrant  than  to  obtain 
medical assistance.  On the flip side, making the require­
ment of independent judicial oversight turn exclusively on 
the  amount  of  time  that  elapses  between  an  arrest  and
BAC testing could induce police departments and individ­
ual  officers  to  minimize  testing  delay  to  the  detriment  of 
other  values.    THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE  correctly  observes  that
“[t]his case involves medical personnel drawing blood at a 
medical  facility,  not  police  officers  doing  so  by  the  side  of
the road.”  Post, at 6–7, n. 2.  But THE CHIEF JUSTICE does