Source: https://www.tdcaa.com/journal/get-a-warrant-the-cca-weighs-in-on-mandatory-blood-draws-and-the-news-isnt-good/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:19:45+00:00

Document:
In 2013, the Supreme Court decided in Missouri v. McNeely that the mere dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream was not an exigent circumstance to support a warrantless blood draw in a DWI case.1 As soon as McNeely was handed down, Texas courts began wrestling with how the case affected blood draws under Transportation Code §724.012(b), which requires blood draws in certain circumstances. The Court of Criminal Appeals finally waded into the issue just before Thanksgiving with a thorough opinion in State v. Villarreal and decided that such blood draws were unconstitutional.2 Although not the decision most prosecutors were hoping for, Villarreal addressed all the State’s arguments and gave a clear rule for the future—at least until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in again.
After several lower courts had struggled with the issue, the Court of Criminal Appeals opted to take up the question via a State’s appeal from the Thirteenth District, State v. Villarreal. This case involved a very typical DWI investigation where the defendant was stopped for a traffic violation, the officer noted signs of intoxication, and the defendant refused all field sobriety tests and a blood test.8 After learning Villarreal had prior DWI convictions, the officer took him to the hospital for a mandatory blood draw under §724.012(b). The officer admitted in the suppression hearing that he “could have” gotten a warrant, but he did not try to because he did not have to under the implied consent statute. The parties agreed there was no emergency or exigent circumstance, presenting a pure question of the implied consent statute.
The State raised a number of arguments to justify the mandatory blood draw post-McNeely, primarily arguing that the search was justified under the consent exception because of the implied consent statute. The Court of Criminal Appeals went through each argument in turn in a lengthy, thorough opinion written by Judge Alcala.
The second basis—but the one that the Court seemed to put the most emphasis on—was that consent by its nature requires that the person be able to “limit or revoke it.”14 The Court found simply that a defendant’s “explicit refusal to submit to blood testing overrides the existence of any implied consent.”15 This leaves open the ability to rely on implied consent where a defendant has not expressly withdrawn his consent, but those cases are few and far between.
Overall, the Court concluded that a statute that merely implies a person’s consent rather than relying on his express prior waiver cannot control as consent, particularly if the person later expressly revokes that consent and refuses the search. Without consent, the State must find some other recognized exception to the warrant requirement to justify the mandatory blood draw. The State offered a number of potential exceptions, but the CCA rejected each in turn.
The State’s final argument was that a simple balancing test under the Fourth Amendment would reveal the search was reasonable as a whole. Where special law enforcement needs are present, a warrantless search may be justified.30 The State argued that the government’s strong interest in protecting the public from intoxicated driving and the narrowly tailored rules of the implied consent statute were sufficient under the Fourth Amendment.
The dissent, however, found this exception the most persuasive. Presiding Judge Keller wrote that collecting blood under the implied consent statute falls on the continuum between warrantless searches of probationers and King­-type buccal swabbing of all arrestees. Because King held that “the mere fact that a person is arrested for a serious offense” justified a minimally intrusive search, a more intrusive but statutorily standardized search of persons arrested for DWI should also pass constitutional muster.
The dissent notwithstanding, the majority determined that none of the State’s arguments were sufficient to overcome the hurdle of McNeely. A blood draw taken under the §724.012(b) exception does not meet any exception to the warrant requirement.
What lessons should prosecutors take from Villarreal? Although the result was not what most prosecutors had hoped for, the Villarreal opinion does appear to address all the State’s arguments and provided a clear rule, though it does not spell out what “exigent circumstances” are (or are not). At the time of this writing, the prosecutors in Villarreal have filed a motion for rehearing, though it has not yet been ruled upon. Certainly a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court is possible as well. The Villarreal decision was 5–4, so close questions on similar issues may be decided differently.
But for now, unless and until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in further on implied consent laws, the advice to prosecutors and police seems clear: If the case falls under the mandatory-draw statute, get a warrant for any nonconsensual blood draws—or have a strong exigency argument that depends on more than just the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream.
1 Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S.Ct. 1552 (2013).
2 State v. Villarreal, No. PD-0306-14 (Tex. Crim. App. Nov. 26, 2014) (slip op.).
3 Tex. Transp. Code §724.011.
4 Tex. Transp. Code §§724.012(b), 724.013.
5 Beeman v. State, 86 S.W.3d 613, 615 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).
6 Id. at 1566 & n.9.
8 Villarreal, slip op. at 3-4.
9 Id. at 21. The State had to first overcome the lower court finding that it had waived this argument at the hearing. Most of the lower courts had sidestepped the consent argument, leading to no clear ruling from any court on the issues of implied consent as its own exception. Let’s be thankful that the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the overall record did not show waiver so that they could address this complaint.
11 Zap v. United States, 328 U.S. 624, 627 (1946).
12 United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 311-12 (1972).
13 Villarreal, slip op. at 27.
14 Villarreal, slip op. at 23, citing Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 252 (1991), and Miller v. State, 393 S.W.3d 255, 266 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012).
15 Villarreal, slip op. at 23-24.
16 United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 116 (2001); Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 852 (2006).
17 Villarreal, slip op. at 27-28.
18 Id. at 28-29. The Court of Criminal Appeals also found it significant that parolees and probationers had already been convicted in a court of law and are subject to different considerations than a person merely detained or arrested by the police.
19 Board of Education v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822, 825 (2002).
20 Villarreal, slip op. at 29-32.
21 California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386 (1985).
22 Villarreal, slip op. at 32, citing California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 580 (1991).
23 Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873-74 (1987).
24 Villarreal, slip op. at 33-34.
25 Id. at 35, citing Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 83 (2001).
26 United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 224-26 (1973).
27 Villarreal, slip op. at 37.
28 Id., citing McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1568.
29 Id., citing Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 770 (1966).
30 See Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326, 330 (2001).
31 Villarreal, slip op. at 38, 47.
32 Id. at 39-42, citing Maryland v. King, 133 S.Ct. 1958 (2013).

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