2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE NINE - Highways and Traffic (§§ 1-8 — 5725) › Chapter 27 - Vehicle and Traffic Law (2000) › Subchapter VI - Driving Motor Vehicles Under the Influence of Alcoholic Beverages, Drugs or Controlled Substances (§§ 5201 — 5210) › § 5209 - Chemical or physical analysis

It shall be deemed that every person who drives a vehicle, motor vehicle or heavy motor vehicle on the public highways of Puerto Rico, has consented to submit to a chemical or physical analysis of his/her blood, breath or any bodily fluid, for the purposes stated in this section, as well as to an initial breath test to be performed at the site of the arrest by the policeman or any other official authorized by law.
The following rules shall be followed with regard to the procedures under this section:
(a) It shall be understood that said consent has been given for any analysis enacted herein and that the person required to undergo it, shall submit to the analysis determined by the law enforcement officer who performs the detention. If the person thus intervened refuses, objects, resists or evades submitting to the alcohol, drug or controlled substance testing procedure, he/she shall be arrested in order to be transferred to a medical-hospital facility for the personnel certified by the Department of Health to proceed to extract the pertinent samples. Once the samples are extracted, the person intervened shall be set free, but if after obtaining the blood samples or performing the breath test the person intervened shows symptoms of not being capable to drive a vehicle, or motor vehicle, the person shall be held at the police station until sober.
(b) It is presumed that any person who is dead or unconscious has not withdrawn his/her consent, as provided above, and the analysis or analyses shall be performed, subject to the provisions of this section. In these cases, as well as in those of pedestrians who die in traffic accidents, the blood samples shall be taken by the Department of Health within four (4) hours after the accident, and in the specific case of unconscious persons, said samples shall be remitted to the Institute of Forensic Sciences for subsequent analysis. It shall be the obligation of every public health unit, hospital, or public or private dispensary when the cadaver is found, to draw the blood sample from the deceased within the abovestated period, and remit it immediately to the Institute of Forensic Sciences.
(c) Any law enforcement officer, or official duly authorized by law, shall require any driver to submit to any of said chemical or physical analyses after having stopped him/her, if said officer has reasonable grounds to believe that said person was driving or operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating beverages, drugs, or controlled substances; or when having been stopped for a possible infraction of the law or public service laws and regulations, there were reasonable grounds to believe that the person was driving or operating a vehicle under the influence intoxicating beverages, drugs, or controlled substances, when detained.
(d) The driver in question may also be required to submit to the above stated analyses by any of the following officials:
(1) The law enforcement officer directly in charge of the police station, district or zone where the arrest was made, as the case may be.
(2) The prosecuting attorney making the preliminary investigation.
(3) Any judge or magistrate of the Court of First Instance.
(e) In addition to the provisions of subsection (c) of this section, any law enforcement officer may require a person who is driving or operating a motor vehicle to submit to an initial breath analysis or test to be performed at the place of the arrest, if said officer:
(1) Has reasonable grounds to believe that the person has consumed alcohol or has used controlled substances.
(2) If there is an accident and the person was driving one of the vehicles involved in the accident.
(f) If the result of the initial analysis of the breath or any other analysis indicates a possible concentration of eight hundredths (0.08) of one percent (1%) or more of alcohol per volume, or two hundredths (0.02) of one percent (1%) or more in the case of drivers of trucks, school busses heavy public service vehicles and heavy motor vehicles; or any concentration of alcohol in the blood in the case of minors less than eighteen (18) years of age; Provided, That the law enforcement officer shall require the driver to submit to a subsequent analysis, the results thereof may be used to show that the person has been driving a vehicle in violation of §§ 5201—5209 of this title. If the concentration is less than that indicated above, except in the case of minors less than eighteen (18) years of age, it shall be concluded that the person detained or arrested has not been driving or operating a vehicle under the effects of alcoholic beverages.
If after performing the alcohol tests they show that the driver was not under the effect of alcoholic beverages, and even so, appeared to be intoxicated, the police officer may have grounds to believe that the driver is under the influence of drugs or controlled substances. In such case, the police officer shall then perform the field tests he/she deems necessary before submitting the person detained or arrested to a chemical analysis of the urine which result can be used to determine whether the person has been driving or operating a vehicle in violation [of] §§ 5201—5210 of this title. If the results of the chemical urine analysis shows or determines that the person was not under the effect of drugs or controlled substances, he/she shall be set free immediately. The Superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police, along with the Department of Health, shall approve regulations that are applicable to the process of such field tests and a procedure for obtaining the urine samples required by this section. Furthermore, he/she shall adopt the regulations within the term of ninety (90) days after the effective date of this act.
(g) The Secretary of the Department of Health is hereby directed to regulate the manner and place that the blood or other bodily fluids shall be taken, stored and analyzed, as well as other procedures germane to the chemical or physical analysis, subject to the provisions of subsections (i), (j), and (k) of this section. The Secretary of the Department of Health is likewise empowered to adopt and regulate the use of the scientific instruments deemed necessary to determine the blood alcohol concentration, as well as of the drugs or controlled substances of the drivers who were detained for driving or operating vehicles under the effect of intoxicating beverages, drugs or controlled substances. This power is extended to the instrument that the law enforcement officer shall use to perform the initial breath analysis, as provided in this section.
(h) Public and private health service institutions and their personnel shall be subject to the rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Department of Health under the authority of subsection (g) of this section.
(i) Any sample obtained from a person, except that from the breath analysis, shall be divided into three (3) parts: one (1) shall be given to the person arrested so that he/she may proceed to its analysis, and the other two (2) shall be reserved for the use of the Department of Health and/or the Institute of Forensic Sciences; one of which is to be used in the chemical or physical analysis required by this section, and the other shall be preserved to be analyzed solely by instruction of the court in the event there is a discrepancy between the official analysis and the analysis performed privately by instruction of the accused.
(j) Only personnel duly certified by the Department of Health, acting at the request of a police officer, a prosecuting attorney, or a judge of the Court of First Instance may require and extract a blood sample to determine its content of alcohol, drugs or controlled substances, subject to what is established in subsection (g) of this section. The Secretary of Health is hereby directed to certify the government personnel duly qualified to perform the analyses for alcohol, drugs or controlled substances in the blood, urine or breath.
(k) A copy of the results of the chemical analysis of the breath, blood or any other bodily substance of the person detained, as the case may be, shall be remitted to the prosecuting attorney of the district corresponding to the place where the events occurred, for due incorporation to the case file. The driver or his/her attorney shall be entitled to be provided with complete information on the analysis or analyses performed.
(l) Every document in which the Department of Health reports the results of an analysis performed in its laboratory, and any other document that is generated pursuant to the regulations promulgated by the Department of Health under the provisions of this section, issued with the signature of authorized personnel and their professional seal, if required, and under the official seal of the Department of Health, shall be admitted as prima facie evidence.
History —Jan. 7, 2000, No. 22, § 7.09; June 3, 2004, No. 132, § 7, eff. 90 days after June 3, 2004.