Court Opinion

ID: 9664419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:18:49.855013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:06.279206
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent because I do not think it is appropriate to legalize the procedure on the basis of a condition whieh was unknown to the officer and on a ground he did not consider.
The procedure is justified here on the basis of Iowa Code section 321J.6(l)(b) (1989), which allows implementation of the procedure when a person is thought to have operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated and:
[t]he person has been involved in a motor vehicle accident or collision resulting in personal injury or death.
(Emphasis added.)
In all respect I am convinced the majority is wrong, both on the facts and the law. The record here simply cannot justify the majority’s suggestion that the officer “believed that defendant was injured even though he did not see or have personal knowledge of an injury.” The officer in fact stoutly and repeatedly denied any such knowledge. In his deposition he did so often enough as to belie any contention that his concession was a mere oversight or a slip of the tongue. The following questions and answers appear scattered through the officer’s deposition:
Q. Okay. So, basically, you did not observe any personal injuries on her during the time you had contact with her? A. No. Sir.
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Q. Did the doctor ever indicate to you at any time prior to this [at the hospital] that she had suffered any personal injury? A. Not that I am aware of.
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Q. So you didn’t see any personal injury and you had no knowledge of any personal injury that she sustained? A. That is correct.
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Q. I take it, as an accident investigator, you’ve seen people involved in personal injury accidents and people that have head concussions and been in shock? A. That is right.
Q. And you didn’t see any of that in Ms. Hopkins? A. None that I am capable of identifying with as others.
Neither is there evidence that the driver thought she was injured or that the attending doctors thought so. The emergency room doctor merely told the officer that Hopkins was capable of consenting to or refusing the request. Indeed, prior to the filing of the majority opinion, no one concluded that the driver was injured.
Iowa Code section 321 J. 6(1) provides five bases for triggering the implied consent law, including the injured person ground under section 321J.6(l)(b). The officer here had ample ground to arrest the driver for the offense and invoke a procedure under section 321J.6(l)(a). He may have had grounds to consider the driver injured and to proceed under section 321J.6(l)(b). In fact he did neither. We should not patch *898up the prosecution on the basis of a ground the officer did not invoke. I would affirm.
LAVORATO, NEUMAN and SNELL, JJ., join this dissent.