Court Opinion

ID: 9686976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:12:47.760841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:23.407190
License: Public Domain

White, C. Thomas, J.,
dissenting.
At the time of an arrest for driving while intoxicated, the defendant is required to submit to the taking of body fluids or a breath sample, under pain of loss of his operator’s license for refusal to do so. § 39-669.08, R. R. S. 1943.
The defendant is usually requested to perform physical acts, and his reactions are testified to, generally by an officer, who has already made the determination of probable cause. The tests are used to reinforce that determination. The defendant is not entitled to the Miranda warnings during this procedure. Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 86 S. Ct. 1826, 16 L. Ed. 2d 908 (1966).
In an attempt to place a disinterested person within the police station scenario, the Legislature in passing section 39-669.08, R. R. S. 1943, allowed the defendant to have a physician present to “evaluate his *341condition and perform or have performed whatever laboratory tests he deems appropriate.”
Doubtless operating under the fiction that “everyone may be presumed to know the law,” we have inappropriately held that the defendant need not be informed of that right. Zadina v. Weedlun, 187 Neb. 361, 190 N. W. 2d 857. The majority further restricts section 39-669.09 by this decision. We now hold, in the face of an assertion that a request was made and refused, that the evasive response, “I don’t recall,” or “Yes, I would have informed him,” creates a factual question as to whether the request was made and refused.
The least protection this section ought to provide, it seems to me, is the requirement that the State meet a positive assertion of request and denial, with an equally positive assertion that the request was not made. Anything less, and an already crippled statute will be rendered useless.
McCown, J., joins in this dissent.