Court Opinion

ID: 9824523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 10:48:45.950302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:48.051105
License: Public Domain

HUDSON, J.,
CONCURRING IN PART/DISSENTING IN PART
¶ 1 In the constellation of cases embodied within this Court’s Fourth Amendment juris*913prudence, today’s decision will surely be a falling star. The majority opinion in this case is notable primarily for its faulty logic, its disregard of three separate decisions from the United States Supreme Court which control this case and its indifference to our Fourth Amendment values. I concur in affirming the judgment and sentence but dissent to the majority opinion’s disregard in Proposition II of the Fourth Amendment limitations placed on 47 O.S.2011, § 10-104(B) by clearly-established Supreme Court law.
¶ 2 The majority opinion acknowledges that 47 O.S.2011, § 10-104(B) creates a per se rule requiring blood testing where a vehicular accident has resulted in immediate death or great bodily injury. Missouri v. McNeely, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1552, 185 L.Ed.2d 696 (2013) holds that law enforcement officers are not categorically permitted to obtain a non-consenting suspect’s blood sample without a warrant simply because alcohol is leaving a suspect’s blood stream. The Supreme Court in McNeely held that “in drunk-driving investigations, the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not constitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant” Id., 133 S.Ct. at 1568. Instead, in each case law enforcement must examine the totality of the circumstances in determining whether such a warrantless search is reasonable and permissible under McNeely. Specifically, law enforcement must consider whether “there is compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant.” Id. at 1559 (quoting Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 1949, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978)).
¶ 3 McNeely reaffirmed the Supreme Court’s holding in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966) which likewise evaluated the totality of the circumstances in determining whether a warrantless, nonconsensual blood draw by police was justified by exigent circumstances. McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1559-60; Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 770-72, 86 S.Ct. at 1835-36.
¶ 4 Undeterred, the majority opinion in the present case concludes that McNeely does not prohibit the use of per se rules of this type in vehicular homicide or great bodily injury cases. The holding in McNeely, the majority reasons, applies only to routine DUI investigations not involving immediate death or great bodily injury. The majority ignores, however, that Schmerber itself involved a two-person DUI non-fatality injury accident. Id., 384 U.S. at 758 n. 2, 86 S.Ct. at 1829 n. 2. And the Fourth Amendment unquestionably applies regardless of whether we are addressing a vehicular homicide ease or a non-injury DUI case as in McNeely. As another court has recognized, “[t]he seriousness of the offense does: not itself create exigency[.]” State v. Stavish, 868 N.W.2d 670, 680 (Minn. 2015) (citing Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2414, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978)). Nor does the difference between attempting to obtain evidence essential to a probable DUI charge and a vehicular homicide charge “reduce the quantum of evidence the State must present to prove exigent circumstances.” Stavish, 868 N.W.2d at 680.
¶ 5 No one would dispute that the Fourth Amendment would require a search warrant for the investigation of a residence where a homicide occurred absent some indication that evidence would be lost, destroyed, or removed during the time required to obtain a search warrant; where a police presence minimized that possibility; and where a warrant could be easily and conveniently obtained. Notably, those were the facts in Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), where the Supreme Court rejected a categorical exception to the warrant requirement based on the existence of a possible homicide at a crime scene which, according to the State of Arizona, presented an emergency situation demanding immediate action regardless of the surrounding circumstances. Id., 437 U.S. at 392-94, 98 S.Ct. at 2413-14.
¶ 6 The Mincey court “decline[d] to hold that the seriousness of the offense under investigation itself creates exigent circumstances of the kind that under the Fourth Amendment justify a warrantless search.” Id., 437 U.S. at 394, 98 S.Ct. at 2414. Yet, the majority opinion in the present ease sanctions forced blood draws—described by the Supreme Court as an invasion of bodily in*914tegrity implicating a person’s “most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy[,]” McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1558 (internal quotation omitted)—based on little more than the seriousness of the offense being investigated, i.e., vehicular accidents resulting in death or great bodily injury. See also Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 770, 86 S.Ct. at 1835 (noting that absent an emergency, search warrants are generally required for searches of dwellings and “no less could be required where intrusions into the human body are concerned.”).
¶ 7 Nothing in McNeely endorses application of a 'per se rule in this context which disregards the Fourth Amendment prohibition against warrantless searches. On the contrary, everything in McNeely and Schmerber tells us that the regular exigency analysis must be applied in this case. That is precisely what Judge Musseman did in denying the defense motion to suppress—he found the exigency exception to the warrant requirement satisfied in the present case. As the majority opinion holds alternatively, the record shows Judge Musseman’s decision upholding the nonconsensual blood draw in this case was not an abuse of discretion. Cripps, op. at 909 n. 4.
¶ 8 Perhaps the exigency analysis will be satisfied in the vast majority of fatality-DUI cases. But that is not to say police will act reasonably in every fatality-DUI ease when they do not obtain a warrant before conducting forced blood-draws. On this last point, I repeat what McNeely held: “In those drunk-driving investigations where police officers can reasonably obtain a warrant before a blood sample can be drawn without significantly undermining the efficacy of the search, the Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so.” McNeely, 133 S.Ct. at 1561.
¶ 9 McNeely makes clear that law enforcement officers are not categorically permitted to obtain a non-consenting suspect’s blood sample without a warrant simply because alcohol is leaving a suspect’s blood stream. The majority in this ease wrongly limits McNeely’s reach. This is particularly troubling considering the “cardinal principle” embodied by the Fourth Amendment that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Mincey, 437 U.S. at 390, 98 S.Ct. at 2412 (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (footnotes omitted)).
¶ 10 Today’s decision is especially unsettling considering the subject matter. DUI-related accidents and vehicular homicides are a national epidemic with the potential to impact directly each and every person who drives on our streets and highways. Police and prosecutors are, in the first instance, left to deal with the legal consequences of these tragic—and entirely preventable—crimes. Today’s decision does them no favors. Instead of clarifying that § 10-104(B) can (and must) be applied in a constitutional manner in light of clearly-established Supreme Court law as we have with other statutes in this context,1 the majority merely tells police and prosecutors that there is nothing to see here.
¶ 11 The majority’s insistence upon marginalizing McNeely and Schmerber in this way adds uncertainty to the law where there should be none. We leave the bench, bar and public wondering what the law truly is and, in the process, leave the fate of DUI-related vehicular accidents involving immediate death or injuries hanging in the balance. Today’s decision is not built to last—we are *915simply delaying the inevitable.2 For the above reasons, I concur in part and dissent in part to the majority opinion in this case.

. In State v. Shepherd, 1992 OK CR 69, 840 P.2d 644, this Court addressed the constitutional limits of 47 O.S.Supp.1988, § 753, a similar provision that allows an officer to take blood against the objections of a conscious person whom he has placed trader arrest when "the investigating officer has probable cause to believe that the person under arrest, while intoxicated, has operated his motor vehicle in such a manner as to have caused the death or serious physical injury to any other person or persons.” This Court held that § 753 did not meet the constitutional mandates set forth in Schmerber. Nonetheless, § 753 could be applied in a constitutional manner, this Court held, "if the investigating officer only instructs that blood be drawn from the driver when the officer reasonably believes that under the circumstances, any delay necessary to secure a warrant may result in the loss of evidence.” Shepherd, 1992 OK CR 69, ¶¶ 5-6, 840 P.2d at 646 (citing Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 770-71, 86 S.Ct. 1826).

. This conclusion is bolstered by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Birchfield v. North Dakota, - U.S. -, 136 S.Ct. 2160, 2184-85, 195 L.Ed.2d 560 (2016) ("a blood test, unlike a breath test, may be administered to a person who is unconscious (perhaps as a result of a crash) or who is unable to do what is needed to take a breath test due to profound intoxication or injuries. But we have no reason to believe that such situations are common in drunk-driving arrests, and when they arise, the police may apply for a warrant if need be.”).