Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-6210
Timestamp: 2019-08-25 05:41:58
Document Index: 220242238

Matched Legal Cases: ['§343', '§343', '§343', '§343', '§346', '§163', '§1225', '§346', '§343', 'art, 547', '§343', 'art, 547']

MITCHELL v. WISCONSIN | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
MITCHELL v. WISCONSIN ( )
2018 WI 84, 383 Wis. 2d 192, 914 N. W. 2d 151, vacated and remanded.
(a) BAC tests are Fourth Amendment searches. See Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U. S. ___, ___. A warrant is normally required for a lawful search, but there are well-defined exceptions to this rule, including the “exigent circumstances” exception, which allows warrantless searches “to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence.” Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 149. In McNeely, this Court held that the fleeting nature of blood-alcohol evidence alone was not enough to bring BAC testing within the exigency exception. Id., at 156. But in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, the dissipation of BAC did justify a blood test of a drunk driver whose accident gave police other pressing duties, for then the further delay caused by a warrant application would indeed have threatened the destruction of evidence. Like Schmerber, unconscious-driver cases will involve a heightened degree of urgency for several reasons. And when the driver’s stupor or unconsciousness deprives officials of a reasonable opportunity to administer a breath test using evidence-grade equipment, a blood test will be essential for achieving the goals of BAC testing. Pp. 5–7.
(1) There is clearly a “compelling need” for a blood test of drunk-driving suspects whose condition deprives officials of a reasonable opportunity to conduct a breath test. First, highway safety is a vital public interest—a “compelling” and “paramount” interest, Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U. S. 1, 17–18. Second, when it comes to promoting that interest, federal and state lawmakers have long been convinced that legal limits on a driver’s BAC make a big difference. And there is good reason to think that such laws have worked. Birchfield, 579 U. S., at ___. Third, enforcing BAC limits obviously requires a test that is accurate enough to stand up in court. Id., at ___. And such testing must be prompt because it is “a biological certainty” that “[a]lcohol dissipates from the bloodstream,” “literally disappearing by the minute.” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 169 (Roberts, C. J., concurring). Finally, when a breath test is unavailable to promote the interests served by legal BAC limits, “a blood draw becomes necessary.” Id., at 170. Pp. 9–12.
Justice Thomas would apply a per se rule, under which the natural metabolization of alcohol in the blood stream “creates an exigency once police have probable cause to believe the driver is drunk,” regardless of whether the driver is conscious. Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 178 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Pp. 1–4.
Wisconsin’s implied-consent law is much like those of the other 49 States and the District of Columbia. It deems drivers to have consented to breath or blood tests if an officer has reason to believe they have committed one of several drug- or alcohol-related offenses. 1 See Wis. Stat. §§343.305(2), (3). Officers seeking to conduct a BAC test must read aloud a statement declaring their intent to administer the test and advising drivers of their options and the implications of their choice. §343.305(4). If a driver’s BAC level proves too high, his license will be suspended; but if he refuses testing, his license will be revoked and his refusal may be used against him in court. See ibid. No test will be administered if a driver refuses—or, as the State would put it, “withdraws” his statutorily presumed consent. But “[a] person who is unconscious or otherwise not capable of withdrawing consent is presumed not to have” withdrawn it. §343.305(3)(b). See also §§343.305(3)(ar)1–2. More than half the States have provisions like this one regarding unconscious drivers.
Mitchell was charged with violating two related drunk-driving provisions. See §§346.63(1)(a), (b). He moved to suppress the results of the blood test on the ground that it violated his Fourth Amendment right against “unreason-able searches” because it was conducted without a warrant. Wisconsin chose to rest its response on the notion that its implied-consent law (together with Mitchell’s free choice to drive on its highways) rendered the blood test a consensual one, thus curing any Fourth Amendment problem. In the end, the trial court denied Mitchell’s motion to suppress, and a jury found him guilty of the charged offenses. The intermediate appellate court certified two questions to the Wisconsin Supreme Court: first, whether compliance with the State’s implied-consent law was sufficient to show that Mitchell’s test was consistent with the Fourth Amendment and, second, whether a warrantless blood draw from an unconscious person violates the Fourth Amendment. See 2018 WI 84, ¶15, 383 Wis. 2d 192, 202–203, 914 N. W. 2d 151, 155–156 (2018). The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed Mitchell’s convictions, and we granted certiorari, 586 U. S. ___ (2019), to decide “[w]hether a statute author-
Over the last 50 years, we have approved many of the defining elements of this scheme. We have held that forcing drunk-driving suspects to undergo a blood test does not violate their constitutional right against self-incrimination. See Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 765 (1966). Nor does using their refusal against them in court. See South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 563 (1983). And punishing that refusal with automatic license revocation does not violate drivers’ due process rights if they have been arrested upon probable cause, Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U. S. 1 (1979); on the contrary, this kind of summary penalty is “unquestionably legitimate.” Neville, supra, at 560.
We have also reviewed BAC tests under the “exigent circumstances” exception—which, as noted, allows warrantless searches “to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence.” Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 149 (2013). In McNeely, we were asked if this exception covers BAC testing of drunk-driving suspects in light of the fact that blood-alcohol evidence is always dissipating due to “natural metabolic processes.” Id., at 152. We answered that the fleeting quality of BAC evidence alone is not enough. Id., at 156. But in Schmerber it did justify a blood test of a drunk driver who had gotten into a car accident that gave police other pressing duties, for then the “further delay” caused by a warrant application really “would have threatened the destruction of evidence.” McNeely, supra, at 152 (emphasis added).
The Fourth Amendment guards the “right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches” and provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” A blood draw is a search of the person, so we must determine if its administration here without a warrant was reasonable. See Birchfield, 579 U. S. at ___ (slip op., at 14). Though we have held that a warrant is normally required, we have also “made it clear that there are exceptions to the warrant requirement.” Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326, 330 (2001). And under the exception for exigent circumstances, a warrantless search is allowed when “ ‘there is compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant.’ ” McNeely, supra, at 149 (quoting Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509 (1978)). In McNeely, we considered how the exigent-circumstances exception applies to the broad category of cases in which a police officer has probable cause to believe that a motorist was driving under the influence of alcohol, and we do not revisit that question. Nor do we settle whether the exigent-circumstances exception covers the specific facts of this case. 2 Instead, we address how the exception bears on the category of cases encompassed by the question on which we granted certiorari—those involving unconscious drivers. 3 In those cases, the need for a blood test is compelling, and an officer’s duty to attend to more pressing needs may leave no time to seek a warrant.
First, highway safety is a vital public interest. For decades, we have strained our vocal chords to give adequate expression to the stakes. We have called highway safety a “compelling interest,” Mackey, 443 U. S., at 19; we have called it “paramount,” id., at 17. Twice we have referred to the effects of irresponsible driving as “slaughter” comparable to the ravages of war. Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U. S. 432, 439 (1957); Perez v. Campbell, 402 U. S. 637, 657, 672 (1971) (Blackmun, J., concurring in result in part and dissenting in part). We have spoken of “carnage,” Neville, 459 U. S., at 558–559, and even “frightful carnage,” Tate v. Short, 401 U. S. 395, 401 (1971) (Blackmun, J., concurring). The frequency of preventable collisions, we have said, is “tragic,” Neville, supra, at 558, and “astounding,” Breithaupt, supra, at 439. And behind this fervent language lie chilling figures, all captured in the fact that from 1982 to 2016, alcohol-related accidents took roughly 10,000 to 20,000 lives in this Nation every single year. See National Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (NHTSA), Traffic Safety Facts 2016, p. 40 (May 2018). In the best years, that would add up to more than one fatality per hour.
Second, when it comes to fighting these harms and promoting highway safety, federal and state lawmakers have long been convinced that specified BAC limits make a big difference. States resorted to these limits when earlier laws that included no “statistical definition of intoxication” proved ineffectual or hard to enforce. See Birchfield, 579 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 2–3). The maximum permissible BAC, initially set at 0.15%, was first lowered to 0.10% and then to 0.08%. Id., at ___, ___–___ (slip op., at 3, 6–7). Congress encouraged this process by conditioning the award of federal highway funds on the establishment of a BAC limit of 0.08%, see 23 U. S. C. §163(a); 23 CFR §1225.1 (2012), and every State has adopted this limit. 4 Not only that, many States, including Wisconsin, have passed laws imposing increased penalties for recidivists or for drivers with a BAC level that exceeds a higher threshold. See Wis. Stat. §346.65(2)(am); Birchfield, 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7).
create pressing needs; it is itself a medical emergency. 5 It means that the suspect will have to be rushed to the hospital or similar facility not just for the blood test itself but for urgent medical care. 6 Police can reasonably anticipate that such a driver might require monitoring, positioning, and support on the way to the hospital; 7 that his blood may be drawn anyway, for diagnostic purposes, immediately on arrival; 8 and that immediate medical treatment could delay (or otherwise distort the results of) a blood draw conducted later, upon receipt of a warrant, thus reducing its evidentiary value. See McNeely, supra, at 156 (plurality opinion). All of that sets this case apart from
2 Justice Sotomayor’s dissent argues that Wisconsin waived the argument that we now adopt, but the dissent paints a misleading picture of both the proceedings below and the ground for our decision.First, as to the proceedings below, the dissent contends that the sole question certified to the Wisconsin Supreme Court was “ ‘whether the warrantless blood draw of an unconscious motorist pursuant to Wisconsin’s implied consent law, where no exigent circumstances exist or have been argued, violates the Fourth Amendment.’ ” Post, at 3 (quoting App. 61). That is indeed how the intermediate appellate court understood the issue in the case, but the State Supreme Court took a broader view, as was its right. It regarded the appeal as presenting two questions, one of which was “whether a warrantless blood draw from an unconscious person pursuant to Wis. Stat. §343.305(3)(b) violates the Fourth Amendment.” See 383 Wis. 2d 192, 202–203, 914 N. W. 2d 151,155–156 (2018). This broad question easily encompasses the rationale that we adopt today.Second, after noting that the State did not attempt below to make a case-specific showing of exigent circumstances, the dissent claims that our decision is based on this very ground. But that is not at all the basis for our decision. We do not hold that the State established that the facts of this particular case involve exigent circumstances under McNeely. Rather, we adopt a rule for an entire category of cases—those in which a motorist believed to have driven under the influence of alcohol is unconscious and thus cannot be given a breath test. This rule is not based on what happened in petitioner’s particular case but on the circumstances generally present in cases that fall within the scope of the rule. Those are just the sorts of features of unconscious-driver cases that Wisconsin brought to our attention, see Brief for Respondent 54–55; Tr. of Oral Arg. at 32–34, 48–51, which petitioner addressed, see Reply Brief at 14–15; Tr. of Oral Arg. at 15–20, 23–24, 29–31, 63–66. So it is entirely proper for us to decide the case on this ground. See Thigpen v. Roberts, 468 U. S. 27, 29–30 (1984).
3 While our exigent-circumstances precedent requires a “ ‘totality of the circumstances’ ” analysis, “the circumstances in drunk driving cases are often typical, and the Court should be able to offer guidance on how police should handle cases like the one before us.” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 166 (Roberts, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Indeed, our exigency case law is full of general rules providing such guidance. Thus, we allow police to proceed without a warrant when an occupant of a home requires “emergency assistance,” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006); when a building is on fire, see Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509 (1978); and when an armed robber has just entered a home, see United States v. Santana, 427 U. S. 38 (1976). “In each of these cases, the requirement that we base our decision on the ‘totality of the circumstances’ has not prevented us from spelling out a general rule for the police to follow.” McNeely, supra, at 168 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). Neither does it prevent us here.
8 See J. Kwasnoski, G. Partridge, & J. Stephen, Officer’s DUI Handbook 142 (6th ed. 2013) (“[M]ost hospitals routinely withdraw blood from the driver immediately upon admittance”); see also E. Mitchell & R. Medzon, Introduction to Emergency Medicine 269 (2005) (“Serum glucose and blood alcohol concentrations are two pieces of information that are of paramount importance when an apparently intoxicated patient arrives at the [emergency room]”); Mayo Clinic, Alcohol Poisoning: Diagnosis & Treatment (2019), https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alcohol-poisoning/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20354392. In this respect, the case for allowing a blood draw is stronger here than in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966). In the latter, it gave us pause that blood draws involve piercing a person’s skin. See id., at 762, 770. But since unconscious suspects will often have their skin pierced and blood drawn for diagnostic purposes, allowing law enforcement to use blood taken from that initial piercing would not increase the bodily intrusion. In fact, dispensing with the warrant rule could lessen the intrusion. It could enable authorities to use blood obtained by hospital staff when the suspect is admitted rather than having to wait to hear back about a warrant and then order what might be a second blood draw.
Today, the plurality adopts a difficult-to-administer rule: Exigent circumstances are generally present when police encounter a person suspected of drunk driving—except when they aren’t. Compare ante, at 13, with ante, at 16. The plurality’s presumption will rarely be rebutted, but it will nevertheless burden both officers and courts who must attempt to apply it. “The better (and far simpler) way to resolve” this case is to apply “the per se rule” I proposed in Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141 (2013) (dissenting opinion). Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (slip op., at 3). Under that rule, the natural metabolization of alcohol in the blood stream “ ‘creates an exigency once police have probable cause to believe the driver is drunk,’ ” regardless of whether the driver is conscious. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 4). Be-cause I am of the view that the Wisconsin Supreme Court should apply that rule on remand, I concur only in the judgment.
The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Although the Fourth Amendment does not, by its text, require that searches be supported by a warrant, see Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U. S. 551, 571–573 (2004) (Thomas, J., dissenting), “this Court has inferred that a warrant must generally be secured” for a search to comply with the Fourth Amendment, Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 459 (2011). We have also recognized, however, that this warrant presumption “may be overcome in some circumstances because ‘[t]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is “reasonableness.” ’ ” Ibid. Accordingly, we have held that “the warrant requirement is subject to certain reasonable exceptions.” Ibid.
Presumably, the plurality draws these lines to avoid overturning McNeely. See id., at 156 (majority opinion) (holding that “the natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood” does not “categorically” support a finding of exi-gency). But McNeely was wrongly decided, see id., at 176–183 (opinion of Thomas, J.), and our decision in Birchfield has already undermined its rationale. Specifically, the Court determined in McNeely that “[t]he context of blood testing is different in critical respects from other destruction-of-evidence cases in which the police are truly confronted with a now or never situation.” 569 U. S., at 153 (majority opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). But the Court stated in Birchfield that a distinction between “an arrestee’s active destruction of evidence and the loss of evidence due to a natural process makes little sense.” 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 31); see also ante, at 11–12. Moreover, to the extent McNeely was grounded in the belief that a per se rule was inconsistent with the “case by case,” “totality of the circumstances” analysis ordinarily applied in exigent-circumstances cases, see 569 U. S., at 156, that rationale was suspect from the start. That the exigent-circumstances exception might ordinarily require “an evaluation of the particular facts of each case,” Birchfield, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 32), does not foreclose us from recognizing that a certain, dispositive fact is always present in some categories of cases. In other words, acknowledging that destruction of evidence is at issue in every drunk-driving case does not undermine the general totality-of-the-circumstances approach that McNeely and Birchfield endorsed. Cf. ante, at 9, n. 3.
The Court has consistently held that police officers may perform searches without a warrant when destruction of evidence is a risk. United States v. Banks, 540 U. S. 31, 38 (2003); Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U. S. 385, 395 (1997); Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U. S. 291, 295–296 (1973); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770–772 (1966). The rule should be no different in drunk-driving cases. Because the plurality instead adopts a rule more likely to confuse than clarify, I concur only in the judgment.
Once at the police station, the officer placed Mitchell in a holding cell, where Mitchell began to drift into either sleep or unconsciousness. At that point, the officer decided against administering a more definitive breath test and instead took Mitchell to the hospital for a blood test. Mitchell became fully unconscious on the way. At the hospital, the officer read Mitchell a notice, required by Wisconsin’s so-called “implied consent” law, which gave him the opportunity to refuse BAC testing. See Wis. Stat. §343.305 (2016). But Mitchell was too incapacitated to respond. The officer then asked the hospital to test Mitchell’s blood. Mitchell’s blood was drawn about 90 minutes after his arrest, and the test revealed a BAC of 0.22% 1 At no point did the officer attempt to secure a warrant.
On certification from the state appellate court, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld the search. 2 The Court granted certiorari to decide whether a statute like Wisconsin’s, which allows police to draw blood from an unconscious drunk-driving suspect, provides an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.” When the aim of a search is to uncover evidence of a crime, the Fourth Amendment generally requires police to obtain a warrant. Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646, 653 (1995).
The warrant requirement is not a mere formality; it ensures that necessary judgment calls are made “ ‘by a neutral and detached magistrate,’ ” not “ ‘by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’ ” Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 770 (1966). A warrant thus serves as a check against searches that violate the Fourth Amendment by ensuring that a police officer is not made the sole interpreter of the Constitution’s protections. Accordingly, a search conducted without a warrant is “per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnote omitted); see Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 382 (2014) (“In the absence of a warrant, a search is reasonable only if it falls within a specific exception to the warrant requirement”).
The carefully circumscribed exceptions to the warrant requirement, as relevant here, include the exigent-circumstances exception, which applies when “ ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable,” Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 460 (2011) (some internal quotation marks omitted); the consent exception for cases where voluntary consent is given to the search, see, e.g., Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S. 103, 109 (2006); and the exception for “searches incident to arrest,” see, e.g., Riley, 573 U. S., at 382.
Blood draws are “searches” under the Fourth Amendment. The act of drawing a person’s blood, whether or not he is unconscious, “involve[s] a compelled physical intrusion beneath [the] skin and into [a person’s] veins,” all for the purpose of extracting evidence for a criminal investigation. Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 148 (2013). The blood draw also “places in the hands of law enforcement authorities a sample that can be preserved and from which it is possible to extract information beyond a simple BAC reading,” Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 23), such as whether a person is pregnant, is taking certain medications, or suffers from an illness. That “invasion of bodily integrity” disturbs “an individual’s ‘most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy.’ ” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 148.
In Birchfield, the Court rejected another attempt categorically to exempt blood draws from the warrant requirement. 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 33). The Court considered whether warrantless breath and blood tests to determine a person’s BAC level were permissible as searches incident to arrest. The Court held that warrantless breath tests were permitted because they are insufficiently intrusive to outweigh the State’s need for BAC testing. See ibid. As to blood tests, however, the Court held the opposite: Because they are significantly more intrusive than breath tests, the warrant requirement applies unless particular exigent circumstances prevent officers from obtaining a warrant. Ibid.; see id., at ___ (slip op., at 34) (“Nothing prevents the police from seeking a warrant for a blood test when there is sufficient time to do so in the particular circumstances or from relying on the exigent circumstances exception . . . when there is not”). 3
The plurality does not rely on the consent exception here. See ante, at 5. With that sliver of the plurality’s reasoning I agree. I would go further and hold that the state statute, however phrased, cannot itself create the actual and informed consent that the Fourth Amendment requires. See Randolph, 547 U. S., at 109 (describing the “voluntary consent” exception to the warrant requirement as “ ‘jealously and carefully drawn’ ”); Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S. 543, 548 (1968) (stating that consent must be “freely and voluntarily given”); see also Schneck-loth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 226–227 (1973) (explaining that the existence of consent must “be determined from the totality of all the circumstances”). That should be the end of this case.
Rather than simply applying this Court’s precedents to address—and reject—Wisconsin’s implied-consent theory, the plurality today takes the extraordinary step of relying on an issue, exigency, that Wisconsin has affirmatively waived. 4 Wisconsin has not once, in any of its briefing before this Court or the state courts, argued that exigent circumstances were present here. In fact, in the state proceedings, Wisconsin “conceded” that the exigency exception does not justify the warrantless blood draw in this case. App. 66; see 2018 WI 84, ¶12, 383 Wis. 2d 192, 202, 914 N. W. 2d 151, 155 (“The State expressly stated that it was not relying on exigent circumstances to justify the blood draw”). Accordingly, the state courts proceeded on the acknowledgment that no exigency is at issue here. As the Wisconsin Court of Appeals put it:
“In particular, this case is not susceptible to resolution on the ground of exigent circumstances. No testimony was received that would support the conclu-sion that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless blood draw. [The officer] expressed agnosticism as to how long it would have taken to obtain a warrant, and he never once testified (or even implied) that there was no time to get a warrant.” App. 66.
The exigency issue is therefore waived—that is, knowingly and intentionally abandoned, see Wood v. Milyard, 566 U. S. 463, 474 (2012)—and the Court should not have considered it. See, e.g., Heckler v. Campbell, 461 U. S. 458, 468, n. 12 (1983); cf. Alabama v. Shelton, 535 U. S. 654, 674 (2002) (“We confine our review to the ruling the Alabama Supreme Court made in the case as presented to it”).
Rather than hold Wisconsin to a concession from which it has never wavered, the plurality takes on the waived theory. As “ ‘a court of review, not of first view,’ ” however, this Court is not in the business of volunteering new rationales neither raised nor addressed below, and even less ones that no party has raised here. Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 8); see, e.g., Star Athletica, L. L. C. v. Varsity Brands, Inc., 580 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 6); cf. Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U. S. 730, 747–748, n. 22 (1987) (declining to review a respondent’s previously unraised claim “[b]ecause the judgment [was] that of a state court” and no “exceptional” circumstances were present).
There are good reasons for this restraint. Ensuring that an issue has been fully litigated allows the Court “the benefit of developed arguments on both sides and lower court opinions squarely addressing the question.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 538 (1992). It also reflects a central “ ‘premise of our adversarial system’ ”: Courts sit to resolve disputes among the parties, not “ ‘as self-directed boards of legal inquiry and research.’ ” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 408 (1995) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (quoting Carducci v. Regan, 714 F. 2d 171, 177 (CADC 1983) (Scalia, J.)).
These rules, in other words, beget more informed decisionmaking by the Court and ensure greater fairness to litigants, who cannot be expected to respond pre-emptively to arguments that live only in the minds of the Justices. Cf. Granite Rock Co. v. Teamsters, 561 U. S. 287, 306, and n. 14 (2010); Yee, 503 U. S., at 535–536. These principles should apply with greater force when the issues were not merely forfeited but affirmatively “conceded” below, App. 66, and where, as here, the question is one of constitutional dimension. The plurality acts recklessly in failing to honor these fundamental principles here. 5
There are good reasons why Wisconsin never asked any court to consider applying any version of the exigency exception here: This Court’s precedents foreclose it. Ac-cording to the plurality, when the police attempt to obtain a blood sample from a person suspected of drunk driving, there will “almost always” be exigent circumstances if the person falls unconscious. Ante, at 1. As this case demonstrates, however, the fact that a suspect fell unconscious at some point before the blood draw does not mean that there was insufficient time to get a warrant. And if the police have time to secure a warrant before the blood draw, “the Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so.” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 152. In discarding that rule for its own, the plurality may not “revisit” McNeely, ante, at 8, but the plurality does ignore it.
The exigent-circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement applies if the State can demonstrate a “compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant.” Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509 (1978); see also King, 563 U. S., at 460 (The exception applies “when ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable” (some internal quotation marks omitted)). The Court has identified exigencies when officers need to enter a home without a warrant to provide assistance to a “seriously injured” occupant or one facing an imminent threat of such injury, Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006); when officers are in “hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect, United States v. Santana, 427 U. S. 38, 42–43 (1976); and when officers need to enter a burning building to extinguish a fire, Tyler, 436 U. S., at 509.
The plurality distinguishes unconscious drunk-driving suspects from others based on the fact that their unconsciousness means that they will, invariably, need urgent medical attention due to their loss of consciousness. See ante, at 13–14. But the need for medical care is not unique to unconscious suspects. “Drunk drivers often end up in an emergency room,” whether or not they are unconscious when the police encounter them. See McNeely, 569 U. S., at 171 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). The defendant in Schmerber was hospitalized, yet the Court did not, in that case or in McNeely decades later, promulgate a categorical exception for every warrantless blood draw. That Mitchell was hospitalized is likewise insufficient here. Even if the plurality is right that every suspect who loses consciousness will need medical care, not every medical response will interfere with law enforcement’s ability to secure a warrant before ordering a blood draw. See McNeely, 569 U. S., at 153–154; id., at 171–172 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). 6
Because the precedent is so squarely against it, the plurality devotes much of its opinion instead to painting a dire picture: the scene of a drunk-driving-related accident, where police officers must tend to the unconscious person, others who need medical attention, oncoming traffic, and investigatory needs. See ante, at 15. There is no indication, however, in the record or elsewhere that the tableau of horribles the plurality depicts materializes in most cases. Such circumstances are certainly not present in this case, in which the police encountered Mitchell alone, after he had parked and left his car; indeed, Mitchell lost consciousness over an hour after he was found walking along the lake. The potential variation in circumstances is a good reason to decide each case on its own facts, as McNeely instructs and as the Court did in Schmerber. See McNeely, 569 U. S., at 149–151, 156. The plurality instead bases its de facto categorical exigency exception on nothing more than a “ ‘considerable overgeneralization,’ ” id., at 153, as well as empirical assumptions that the parties not only lacked a chance to address, but that are also belied by Wisconsin’s concession in this case. 7
The plurality misguidedly departs from this rule, setting forth its own convoluted counterpresumption instead. But the Fourth Amendment is not as pliable as the plurality suggests. The warrant requirement safeguards privacy and physical autonomy by “assuring citizens” that searches “are not the random or arbitrary acts of government agents.” Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 621–622 (1989); see id., at 621.
There is no doubt that drunk drivers create grave danger on our roads. It is, however, “[p]recisely because the need for action . . . is manifest” in such cases that “the need for vigilance against unconstitutional excess is great.” Id., at 635 (Marshall, J., dissenting). “Requiring a warrant whenever practicable helps ensure that when blood draws occur, they are indeed justified.” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 174 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). For that reason, “the police bear a heavy burden” to justify a warrantless search like the one here based on “urgent need.” Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 749–750 (1984).
2 The Wisconsin Supreme Court rephrased the certified question, but, like the Court of Appeals, it recognized the State’s concession that the exigency exception did not apply and, accordingly, did not consider the issue in reaching its decision. See 2018 WI 84, ¶12, 383 Wis. 2d 192, 202, 914 N. W. 2d 151, 155.
5 A related but distinct point: The issue on which the plurality resolves this case is not “fairly included” in the question on which the Court granted certiorari. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). The Court granted certiorari to answer “[w]hether a statute authorizing a blood draw from an unconscious motorist provides an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.” Pet. for Cert. ii; accord, ante, at 4–5. The answer to that question is no. Whether exigent circumstances nevertheless require that the warrantless blood draw be upheld is an independent issue. True, that issue might affect the same “category of cases,” ante, at 8, n. 2, but that would be true of all sorts of matters not fairly included in the question on which this Court granted certiorari. “Both [issues] might be subsidiary to a question embracing both—[Was suppression appropriate?]—but they exist side by side, neither encompassing the other.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 537 (1992). This Court applies a “heavy presumption against” venturing beyond the question presented, even when the parties ask it to do so. Ibid. Here, of course, the plurality ventures forth to provide guidance entirely of its own accord. One wonders why the Court asked for briefing and oral argument at all.
7 In addition to offering a justification for Wisconsin’s warrantless search that the State itself has disavowed, the plurality also relieves all States of their burden to justify similar warrantless searches. Until now, the Court has said that “the police bear a heavy burden when attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that might justify warrantless searches.” Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 749–750 (1984); see Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 455 (1971). Today, the plurality turns that presumption on its head in favor of a new one that “almost always” authorizes the police to conduct warrantless blood draws even in the absence of an actual emergency. See ante, at 1.