Impaired Driving: Case Law Review 2017
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Volume 26 February 2017 No. 3 © 2017 Texas Municipal Courts Education Center. Funded by a grant from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Impaired Driving: Case Law Review 2017 Ryan Kellus Turner Regan Metteauer General Counsel and Director of Education Program Attorney TMCEC TMCEC The following decisions and opinions were issued between the dates of October 1, 2015 and October 1, 2016 except where noted (*). Acknowledgment: Thank you Judge David Newell, Courtney Corbello, Benjamin Gibbs, Carmen Roe, Stacey Soule, and Randy Zamora. Your insight and assistance helped us bring this paper to fruition. The search incident to arrest doctrine does not apply to warrantless blood draws, but it does apply to warrantless breath tests. Birchfield v. North Dakota, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016) In a 5-3 decision, the Court examined three consolidated cases involving state laws criminalizing refusal to take warrantless tests measuring blood alcohol concentration (BAC). All three defendants were arrested for drunk driving. Defendants Birchfield (North Dakota) and Beylund (North Dakota) received warnings Case Law Update continued on pg. 3 Community Service: Inside This Issue Suggested Practices and Potential 800-Line Guidelines ..................... 40 Problem Areas Academic Schedule ....................... 39 Court Security Specialist Certification .................................. 31 Molly Knowles, Communications Assistant, TMCEC DRSR Selected for Award ............ 2 Ethics Update ................................ 19 Community Service: An Alternative Mean From the Center ............................ 35 Impaired Driving DVDs ............... 27 In Tate v. Short (1971), the Supreme Court of the United States held that MTSI Conference ......................... 32 the Equal Protection Clause prohibits converting fines to jail time solely OCA Annual Report ...................... 33 because the defendant is indigent.1 Prior to Tate v. Short, Texas employed Registration Form ......................... 36 a “pay or lay” system, in which defendants, if unable to pay fines, were in- Resources for Your Court ............. 32 carcerated to satisfy their punishments. The abolishment of the “pay or lay” Service Animals & Courts ............ 16 system created a new hurdle for courts. If unable to use commitment to Teen Court Planning Seminar ....... 32 enforce judgment, how would courts be able to satisfactorily encourage de- Traffic Safety Update .................... 24 Truancy Prevention & Intervention Funding ..................... 15 Community Service continued on pg. 11 Page 1 The Recorder February 2017 Texas Municipal Courts Education Center THE 2210 Hancock Drive AROUND STATE Austin, Texas 78756 512.320.8274 or 800.252.3718 Fax: 512.435.6118 www.tmcec.com DRSR Selected for Award Fair and Impartial Justice for All The Driving on the Right Side of the FY17 TMCEC Officers Road (DRSR) grant was selected to President: Stewart Milner, Arlington receive the 2016 J.C. Montgomery, President-Elect: Michael Acuna, Dallas 1st V.P.: Esmeralda Garcia, Houston Jr. Child Safety Award by the Texas 2nd V.P.: Robin A. Ramsay, Denton Office for Prevention of Developmental Secretary: Hilda Cuthbertson, Bryan Disabilities. This award recognizes the Treasurer: Robert C. Richter, Missouri City Past-President: Edward Spillane, College people and organizations of Texas for Station their tireless and extraordinary work Directors to keep children safe. Other award Sheila Roach, Canyon • Danny Rodgers, Fort winners included groups from the Worth • Brian Holman, Lewisville • Janie Krakowski, Coffee City • Sharon Hatten • medical field, individuals, and groups Kathleen Person, Temple • John Bull, San working for child safety, and even a Antonio • Michael Davis, Conroe • Julie Escalante, Baytown • Horacio Pena, Mission biker group working against child abuse. Staff These groups do amazing work to keep • Hope Lochridge, Executive Director children safe in Texas. • Ryan Kellus Turner, General Counsel & Director of Education • Mark Goodner, Deputy Counsel and Director The awards ceremony was held at the State Capitol in Austin, of Judicial Education Texas. Attending were DRSR and TMCEC staff members Elizabeth • Robby Chapman, Director of Clerk Education and Program Attorney De La Garza, Crystal Ferguson, and Ned Minevitz, and TxDOT • Regan Metteauer, Program Attorney representatives Lydia Bryan-Valdez and Michael Teran. Accepting • Deadra Stark, Administrative Director • Patty Thamez, Program Coordinator & the award on behalf of the grant was Elizabeth De La Garza, TxDOT Network Administrator Grant Administrator for the DRSR grant. DRSR is honored to have • Tracie Glaeser, Program Coordinator • Pat Ek, Registration Coordinator received this prestigious award, and to have been in the company of so • Demoine Jones, Multi-Media Specialist many people who care about the children of Texas so deeply. To see • Crystal Ferguson, Research Assistant & Office Manager the dedicated work the other winners are doing for the safety of kids • Avani Bhansali, Administrative Assistant was both heartwarming and humbling. • Molly Knowles, Communications Assistant • Ned Minevitz, TxDOT Grant Administrator & Program Attorney • Elizabeth De La Garza, TxDOT Grant Administrator • Isabel Ramirez, TxDOT Grants Design Specialist Published by the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center through a grant from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. An annual subscription is available for $35. Articles and items of interest not otherwise copyrighted may be reprinted with attribution as follows: “Reprinted from The Recorder: The Journal of Texas Municipal Courts with permission from the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center.” Presenting the award to Elizabeth De La Garza, DRSR Grant Administrator, is Dr. Richard Garnett from Fort Worth. Dr. The views expressed are solely those of the Garnett is the Chair for the Executive Committee of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Texas Office for Prevention of Developmental Disabilities. TMCEC Board of Directors or of TMCEC staff members. Page 2 The Recorder February 2017 require piercing the skin and extracting a part of the Case Law Update continued from pg. 1 subject’s body, are significantly more intrusive than blowing into a tube, and place in the hands of law that they were obligated to submit to blood tests. enforcement a sample that can be preserved holding Defendant Bernard (Minnesota) received instruction information beyond a BAC reading. that a breath test was required. Birchfield and Bernard refused and were convicted of a criminal Weighing this against legitimate state and federal offense for the refusal. Beylund complied with the interests, the Court finds that the laws at issue in demand for the blood sample and his license was these cases making it a crime to refuse to submit subsequently administratively suspended based on to a BAC test are designed to provide an incentive the test results revealing a high BAC. to cooperate in drunk driving cases, which serves an important function. Balancing privacy with the Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court. interests of the State, the Court concludes that the 4th If the warrantless searches in these cases comport Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident with the 4th Amendment, it follows that a state may to arrests for drunk driving, but not warrantless blood criminalize the refusal to comply with a demand tests. to submit to required testing, just as a state may make it a crime to obstruct the execution of a valid As for the implied consent laws at issue, the Court search warrant. It also follows that the test results concludes that motorists cannot be deemed to are not inadmissible under federal law in a criminal have consented to submit to a blood test on pain of prosecution or civil or administrative proceeding. committing a criminal offense (the Court notes its Because all three defendants were searched or told prior opinions that refer approvingly to the general they were required to submit to a search after being concept of implied consent laws that impose civil placed under arrest, the Court considered how the penalties and evidentiary consequences on motorists search-incident-to-arrest doctrine applies to breath who refuse to comply). The Court notes more than and blood tests incident to such arrests. In situations once that while the exigent circumstances exception that could not have been envisioned when the 4th involves an evaluation of the particular facts of Amendment was adopted, like searches of data in each case, the search-incident-to-arrest exception is a cell phone (Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 categorical. It does not depend on an evaluation of (2014)), the Court does not have “guidance from the the threat to officer safety or the threat of evidence founding era,” and therefore, determines whether to loss in a particular case. exempt a given type of search from the warrant requirement “by assessing, on the one hand, the Justice Sotomayor joined the majority’s disposition degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s of Birchfield and Beylund, in which the Court holds privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is that the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement does not interests.” permit warrantless blood tests, but dissented from the Court’s disposition of Bernard, in which the Court Using the same analysis as in Riley, the Court found holds that the same