Opinion ID: 2634655
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: We Remand to the Superior Court To Determine Whether Exigent Circumstances Justified the Search.

Text: Two of the three requirements for an exigent circumstances searchprobable cause and reasonable proceduresare clearly met here. Before interviewing Blank, Trooper Tyler investigated the accident scene and learned that McDowell was dead, that Blank may have caused the accident, and that Blank had left the scene. [37] Accordingly, Trooper Tyler had probable cause [38] to believe that Blank had committed two crimes: felony hit and run [39] and either negligent homicide or manslaughter. [40] Trooper Tyler also had probable cause to believe that a search of Blank's breath would produce relevant evidence of these crimes. Blank told him that she consumed two beers at a friend's house shortly before the accident, and Trooper Tyler testified that the smell of alcohol became quite apparent once he and Blank were sitting in the patrol car. Trooper Tyler also had substantial indirect evidence of Blank's possible impairment based on the circumstances of the accident. He learned that the pedestrians were walking on the edge and shoulder of a straight section of road at the time of the accident, that Blank saw the pedestrians in time to avoid them but inexplicably failed to do so, and that Blank's car and the driving conditions were not the cause of the accident. Furthermore, Blank told Trooper Tyler that she did not stop at the scene because she did not even realize that she had hit someone. She initially thought one of the pedestrians had thrown a rock at the car, and chose to keep driving rather than confront them because they were just kids. Thus, Trooper Tyler had evidence that Blank was responsible for an accident resulting in a fatality, that the accident was likely caused by Blank's inattention, poor judgment, misperception, poor coordination, or some combination of these, and that Blank smelled of alcohol and admitted to drinking shortly before the accident. We conclude that this evidence was more than sufficient under Schmerber to support probable cause to search Blank's breath. [41] Another requirement of Schmerber that a reasonable method of collecting the blood sample be usedis not at issue here. The procedure used in this case was minimally intrusive, involving a breath sample rather than a blood draw. Blank has not challenged Trooper Tyler's qualifications to obtain her breath sample and has alleged no impropriety in the manner in which he conducted her test. [42] Regarding Schmerber's exigent circumstances requirement, we decline to decide this issue for the first time on appeal. Schmerber held that the exigencies posed by serious accidents in combination with the rapid dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream justified the officer's failure to obtain a warrant in that case: The officer in the present case ... might reasonably have believed that he was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, threatened the destruction of evidence. We are told that the percentage of alcohol in the blood begins to diminish shortly after drinking stops, as the body functions to eliminate it from the system. Particularly in a case such as this, where time had to be taken to bring the accused to a hospital and to investigate the scene of the accident, there was no time to seek out a magistrate and secure a warrant. [43] Many courts have implicitly or explicitly held that the dissipation of alcohol always creates sufficient exigency to dispense with the warrant requirement, [44] although at least one court has held that the state must prove exigency on a case-by-case basis. [45] But we decline to address this aspect of the exigent circumstances question presented in this case. Because the lower courts were obliged to follow Layland's arrest requirement, and because there was no dispute that Blank was not arrested contemporaneously with the search of her breath, no lower court has yet reached the issue whether exigent circumstances actually justified Trooper Tyler's search. Accordingly, we remand to the superior court the issue whether exigent circumstances justified Trooper Tyler's search of Blank's breath.