Court Opinion

ID: 9544207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:53:13.947395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:23.956837
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE STEIGMANN, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. The trial court erred by granting defendant’s petition to rescind her statutory summary suspension, and by affirming the trial court, this court compounds the error. At the conclusion of the hearing on defendant’s petition, the trial court found the following regarding the four issues outlined in section 2 — 118.1(b) of the Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1991, ch. 951/2, par. 2 — 118.1(b)): (1) Tessman had placed defendant under arrest, as evidenced by the traffic ticket he issued to her; (2) Tessman had reasonable grounds to believe that defendant was driving a motor vehicle upon a highway while she was under the influence of alcohol; (3) defendant had consented to the blood test; and (4) Tessman had advised defendant of the consequences of the blood test. However, the court held that defendant’s testimony that she received some intravenous injection on the way to the hospital and at the hospital raised the “issue of what was going into her veins.” Because defendant had raised this issue and it had not been resolved, the court decided to rescind the statutory summary suspension of her driver’s license. On appeal, the State argues that the trial court’s decision to rescind the statutory summary suspension of defendant’s driver’s license was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The State contends that defendant did not make a prima facie case that her blood-alcohol concentration was not 0.10 or higher. The State further contends that defendant should be required to provide some medical testimony specifically concerning whether her medical treatment increased her blood-alcohol content before the burden would be shifted to the State to prove the accuracy of her blood test result. The State should prevail on each of these arguments. A statutory summary suspension hearing is a civil proceeding, and the motorist bears the burden of proof to establish a prima facie case for rescinding the statutory summary suspension. (People v. Orth (1988), 124 Ill. 2d 326, 337-38, 530 N.E.2d 210, 215; People v. Kuntz (1993), 239 Ill. App. 3d 587, 590, 607 N.E.2d 313, 315.) The trial court determines whether a motorist has met her burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence as a question of fact, and we will not overturn its decision unless it was against the manifest weight of the evidence. People v. Hawkins (1991), 221 Ill. App. 3d 460, 463, 582 N.E.2d 243, 246. If the motorist presents a prima facie case for rescission because her blood test did not accurately reflect her blood-alcohol concentration, the State must move to admit the test results into evidence and to lay the necessary foundation for the test results in order to avoid rescission. (See Orth, 124 Ill. 2d at 340, 530 N.E.2d at 216; People v. Jennings (1989), 189 Ill. App. 3d 185, 188, 544 N.E.2d 1202, 1204.) The trial court, as trier of fact, must then weigh that evidence in deciding whether to grant the motorist’s motion to rescind the suspension. Hawkins, 221 Ill. App. 3d at 463, 582 N.E.2d at 246. After correctly discussing the allocation of the burdens of proof, the trial court in the present case stated the following regarding the test of defendant’s blood-alcohol concentration: “[Defendant’s testimony] is that she received some intravenous injection on the way to the hospital, and while at the hospital, in that regard, we don’t know. Well, Officer Tessman rightly says he is not concerned about such things. *** [S]o that is understandable from his standpoint, but we do have the issue of what was going into her veins while she was going to the hospital. Now, it may have been something that had nothing to do with alcohol[-]blood [sic] content. It may have been something that did. We don’t know at this point. That issue is unresolved. It’s been raised by the defendant and, under th[e]se circumstances, I’ll find that it’s appropriate to rescind the statutory suspension[.]” In support of the trial court’s decision, defendant contends that her assertions that she received an IV and medication prior to the blood test, alone, establish her prima facie case and suffice by themselves to shift the burden to the State to show the validity of the test results. Citing People v. Miller (1988), 166 Ill. App. 3d 155, 158, 519 N.E.2d 717, 720, defendant additionally claims that “[i]t is not defendant’s obligation to prove the test inaccurate.” However, Miller is a criminal case involving the charge of DUI, which the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The case on appeal is civil in nature, and defendant bears the burden of proof under a preponderance of the evidence standard. (Orth, 124 Ill. 2d at 337-38, 530 N.E.2d at 215.) Thus, Miller has nothing to do with this case. When a defendant seeks rescission of a statutory summary suspension, the burden shifts to the State “only in cases where the [motorist] presents credible evidence that *** the test result was not accurate.” (Jennings, 189 Ill. App. 3d at 189, 544 N.E.2d at 1205.) Therefore, defendant must present some credible evidence that her blood test was unreliable, not — as here — idle speculation and groundless argument that something she received could possibly have affected her blood test. In a similar context, this court has stated that “if these blood-alcohol test results are sufficiently trustworthy and reliable for the emergency[-]room physician to use and consider when deciding what treatment is appropriate, then those results are sufficiently trustworthy and reliable to be received into evidence at a later trial.” (People v. Hoke (1991), 213 Ill. App. 3d 263, 270, 571 N.E.2d 1143, 1147 (discussing section 11 — 501.4 of the Code).) No reason exists— and the majority opinion has suggested none — why a blood test taken by a nurse in a hospital emergency room would be any less reliable when taken for a police officer than when taken for a physician. Indeed, the argument implicit in the majority opinion’s emphasis on how the blood test in this case was not performed for diagnosis or treatment by a physician but at the request of a police officer — that somehow the same test performed by the same people at the same place under the same circumstances is suspect because a physician did not order the test — comes close to insulting the medical personnel involved in defendant’s blood test. The trial court found that the “issue [was] unresolved” whether defendant’s medical treatment affected her blood test. However, defendant presented no evidence of unreliability, thereby failing to prove by a preponderance of the evidence (or, indeed, by any standard) that her medical treatment affected the reliability of her blood test. This court should hold that defendant’s testimony that she received medical treatment prior to her blood test, without more, does not establish a prima facie case that her blood test was inaccurate. Although defendant raised the reliability issue in argument, she simply failed to present any supporting evidence. Defendant testified that she drank less than two drinks before driving on the evening of September 14, 1992, and that she was not under the influence of alcohol. Citing Orth and Kuntz, she argues that such testimony, if credible, can establish a prima facie case of unreliability of test results when a defendant has taken a breathalyzer test that indicated a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.10 or more. (See Orth, 124 Ill. 2d at 341, 530 N.E.2d at 217; Kuntz, 239 Ill. App. 3d at 590, 607 N.E.2d at 316.) Although those cases so hold, I find them inapposite because they involve breathalyzer tests while the present case involves a blood test. The supreme court in Orth discussed extensively its concerns about the accuracy of breathalyzer results, commenting that such tests “are not foolproof,” and that the validity of such tests “depends, in great measure, upon the maintenance and calibration of the machines and the training of their personnel.” (Orth, 124 Ill. 2d at 336, 530 N.E.2d at 214-15.) The personnel involved, of course, are usually police officers. However, the concerns that informed the supreme court’s decision in Orth regarding breathalyzers do not exist when one considers the reliability of blood tests. For the reasons this court discussed in Hoke, we should reject the argument that a defendant’s mere denial of being under the influence of alcohol can call into question the reliability of a blood test. As stated earlier, I find the process of taking and evaluating blood samples, as done in this case, inherently reliable and trustworthy. Therefore, a defendant must present credible evidence beyond her mere denial to establish a prima facie case of unreliability and shift the burden to the State. Because defendant has not established by a preponderance of the evidence that her blood test results were unreliable, the trial court’s decision that she had established a prima facie case was against the manifest weight of the evidence. Accordingly, we should reverse the trial court’s rescission of the statutory summary suspension of defendant’s driver’s license.