Opinion ID: 6331515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Croteau’s Medical Condition and Treatment

Text: [¶32] Consent is not voluntarily given when a person is unconscious or severely impaired. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Myers, 164 A.3d 1162, 1181 (Pa. 2017) (holding that consent was not voluntarily given when the subject was unconscious); Commonwealth v. Jones-Williams, 237 A.3d 528, 542-43 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2020) (holding that consent was not voluntarily given when the subject was drifting in and out of consciousness), appeal granted on other grounds, 252 A.3d 1087 (Pa. 2021). [¶33] Less significant medical issues and treatment, however, have been held not to impinge on the voluntariness of a person’s consent. See, e.g., Rayford v. State, 125 S.W.3d 521, 529 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (holding that consent was voluntarily given when the subject had received only a tetanus shot and Motrin for a knee injury and there was no evidence that the pain rendered his actions involuntary). Nor does the influence of intoxicating substances necessarily negate the voluntariness of consent. See State v. Carter, 443 A.2d 958, 960 (Me. 1982); cf. State v. Kelly, 376 A.2d 840, 849 (Me. 1977) (holding that, when waiver of constitutional rights is required, a person under the influence “is 18 legally competent to do so if, despite the degree of intoxication, he is aware and able to comprehend and to communicate with coherence and rationality” (quotation marks omitted)). [¶34] Although the court found that Croteau was “distracted” by medical treatment requiring his attention and was not “provided any context in which to consider or even really to reflect on the request” for a blood draw, a person may have the capacity to consent despite such considerations. See Ayotte, 2019 ME 61, ¶ 9, 207 A.3d 614 (affirming a finding of capacity to consent to a blood draw when the subject “agreed to some, but not all, of the suggested courses of medical evaluation and treatment at the hospital and then acted in accordance with those decisions”). Nonetheless, the circumstances surrounding Croteau’s consent are relevant in the totality of the circumstances to determine whether a coercive environment made it impossible for his consent to be freely and voluntarily given.