{"id":5394,"date":"2016-06-23T23:50:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T05:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2021-08-26T12:02:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T18:02:50","slug":"scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Upholds Penalties for Warrantless Breath Tests, but Not Blood Tests, in DUI&#160;Arrests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has\u00a0issued the long-awaited ruling in\u00a0a case that brings into question penalties for refusal to submit to warrantless breath or blood testing when arrested for a&#160;DUI.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Birchfield v. North&#160;Dakota<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/15pdf\/14-1468_8n59.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the high court ruled<\/a> that criminal penalties could be applied for refusing to submit to a breath test, which the Court deemed less invasive than blood. However, for states that currently apply criminal penalties for failure to submit to a warrantless blood draw, the Court found that blood testing was more intrusive, and thus requires a&#160;warrant.<\/p>\n<p>Today all 50 states have laws on the books that have some form of \u201cno refusal\u201d or \u201cimplied consent\u201d laws that apply mandatory penalties for a refusal to be tested during a DUI stop. In 2013, the high court ruled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/u-s-supreme-court-to-look-at-penalties-for-refusing-bac-tests-during-dwi-stops\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in <em>Missouri v. McNeely<\/em><\/a> that warrantless testing was unconstitutional, causing many states to strike down or\u00a0alter their own implied consent laws over the last three years. Many observers thought SCOTUS would use today\u2019s ruling to solidify the court\u2019s position on&#160;<em>McNeely<\/em> and perhaps further distinguish between civil and criminal penalties. But instead today\u2019s ruling distinguishes between the invasiveness of breath testing and blood&#160;testing.<\/p>\n<p>In the opinion, Justice Samuel Alito&#160;wrote:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>\u201cBecause the impact of breath tests on privacy is slight, and the need for BAC testing is great, the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving. Blood tests, however, are significantly more intrusive, and their reasonableness must be judged in light of the availability of the less invasive alternative of a breath test.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>The opinion goes on to&#160;state:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><em>\u201cBecause breath tests are significantly less intrusive than blood tests and in most cases amply serve law enforcement interests, a breath test, but not a blood test, may be administered as a search incident to a lawful arrest for drunk driving. No warrant is needed in this situation.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, and Kagan joined in the&#160;opinion.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Birchfield<\/em> ruling also included decisions\u00a0on a second <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/u-s-supreme-court-to-look-at-penalties-for-refusing-bac-tests-during-dwi-stops\/\">North Dakota case and a case from Minnesota<\/a> that challenged license suspensions. The high court\u2019s ruling affirmed the lower court\u2019s finding in the Minnesota case, while the second North Dakota case was remanded to state&#160;court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has\u00a0issued the long-awaited ruling in\u00a0a case that brings into question penalties for refusal to submit to warrantless breath or blood testing when arrested for a&#160;DUI. In Birchfield v. North&#160;Dakota the high court ruled that criminal penalties could be applied for refusing to submit to a breath test, which the Court deemed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[107,120,802,237,801,368,467,728,756,800],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legislation","tag-bac-testing","tag-birchfield-v-north-dakota","tag-breath-testing-during-a-dui-stop","tag-drunk-driving-2","tag-dui-tests","tag-impaired-driving","tag-missouri-v-mcneely","tag-u-s-supreme-court","tag-warrantless-blood-draws","tag-warrantless-breath-test"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SCOTUS Upholds Criminal Penalties for Warrantless DUI Breath Tests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The high court ruled that criminal penalties could be applied for refusing to submit to a breath test, which the Court deemed less invasive than blood.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SCOTUS Upholds Criminal Penalties for Warrantless DUI Breath Tests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The high court ruled that criminal penalties could be applied for refusing to submit to a breath test, which the Court deemed less invasive than blood.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sobering Up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SCRAMx\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-24T05:50:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-26T18:02:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/officer-with-dui-breath-tester.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1170\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sobering Up Administrator\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@scramsystems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@scramsystems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sobering Up Administrator\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sobering Up Administrator\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d81eb856e7b30e26591614b66cb58512\"},\"headline\":\"SCOTUS Upholds Penalties for Warrantless Breath Tests, but Not Blood Tests, in DUI&#160;Arrests\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-24T05:50:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-26T18:02:50+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/scotus-upholds-penalties-warrantless-breath-tests-not-blood-tests-dui-arrests\/\"},\"wordCount\":391,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"BAC testing\",\"Birchfield v. 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