Court Opinion

ID: 9852098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:24:22.647842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:22.308949
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. While I adhere to the authority of Peterson, Kotas, and the other recent cases arising from Peterson, I believe this case can be distinguished because the state got the test, it was administered by an officer, and they apparently accepted and used it.
We have held that the purpose of the implied consent law is to get evidence to get the drunk drivers off the roads.1 While we have held in Peterson and subsequent cases that an officer can request the test as often as he desires without limitation, the last refusal is it, and defendant cannot thereafter require that the test be given. Without disturbing that holding, I would further hold that where the defendant is still in custody, and volunteers to take the test and where the state, acting through its *67law enforcement officials, agrees to give the test, and does, that the state has thereby waived the refusal or is estopped from asserting it. This would clearly distinguish a case of a defendant bonding out and getting his own test, and I would also disavow any requirement that an officer comply with such late request. However, when he does so in the interests of obtaining the evidence that the state wants, that should constitute a waiver or grounds for estoppel.
I am not hung up on the phrase “at the direction of the arresting officer.” The majority of this court has recently held2 that where a municipal police officer makes an arrest outside the limits of his jurisdiction, he does so only as a private citizen, but nevertheless when he puts on his other hat as a law enforcement officer he is capable of requesting the test.

. Beare v. Smith, 82 S.D. 20, 140 N.W.2d 603 (1966); State v. Peterson, S.D., 261 N.W.2d 405. Opinion Filed December 30, 1977.

. State v. MacDonald, S.D., 260 N.W.2d 626, Opinion Filed December 30, 1977.