State v. Granger, decided last week, is the latest case in which the North Carolina Court of Appeals has considered, in light of Missouri v. McNeely, __ U.S. __, 133 S.Ct. 1552 (2013), whether an exigency supported the warrantless withdrawal of an impaired driving suspect’s blood over the person’s objection. Readers may recall that the United States Supreme Court held in McNeely that the natural dissipation of alcohol, standing alone, does not create an exigency in every impaired driving case sufficient to excuse the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. The Granger court held that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless withdrawal of the defendant’s blood about an hour and a half after he drove when it would have taken an additional 40 minutes to obtain a warrant and it was impractical for the lone investigating officer to leave the defendant unattended in the hospital.
Facts. The defendant in Granger was driving in Wilmington around 2:19 a.m. when he rear-ended another vehicle. Officer Eric Lippert of the Wilmington Police Department responded to the report of an accident. When he approached the defendant’s car, he noticed that the defendant was in pain and that he smelled of alcohol. The defendant was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Officer Lippert spoke with the defendant at the hospital. He noticed during their exchange that the defendant’s eyes were bloodshot and glassy. The defendant told the officer that he had been drinking. He said he had taken “‘three shots’” between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. and that he had taken his last shot twenty minutes before the accident, around 2 a.m. The officer administered two portable breath tests to the defendant. Both were positive for alcohol. He also administered the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which the defendant “did not pass.”
The officer determined that he has probable cause to obtain a blood sample from the defendant. (It is not clear from the court of appeals’ opinion or the record whether the officer then charged the defendant with impaired driving. Being charged with an implied consent offense is a prerequisite to obtaining a chemical analysis of a person pursuant to the state’s implied-consent laws. ) The officer then (at 3:10 a.m.) read the defendant his implied consent rights, and waited for a nurse to draw defendant’s blood for analysis. A nurse became available 40 minutes later, at 3:50 a.m., and the officer asked the defendant to submit to the blood draw. The defendant refused.
The officer instructed the nurse to draw the defendant’s blood over the defendant’s objection. A test of the blood sample revealed an alcohol concentration of 0.15.
Procedural History. The defendant was convicted of DWI in district court, and appealed for trial de novo in superior court. He moved in superior court to suppress the blood test results on the basis that his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses had been violated by the State’s failure to prove the chain of custody of his blood sample. He also filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated because his blood was withdrawn at the behest of the police officer without a warrant.
The superior court determined that there were sufficient exigent circumstances to justify the warrantless withdrawal of the defendant’s blood and therefore denied the defendant’s latter motion, which it characterized as a “motion to suppress.” The superior court did not rule on the defendant’s Sixth Amendment argument. The defendant pled guilty, preserving his right to appeal the superior court’s denial of his motion to suppress.
The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the results of the blood test as there was no exigency sufficient to excuse the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
Court of Appeals Opinion. The court of appeals held that the following factors supported the trial court’s conclusion that exigent circumstances existed:
- The officer was concerned about the dissipation of alcohol from the defendant’s blood since the officer developed probable cause for DWI more than an hour after the accident.
- The officer was concerned about dissipation “‘due to delays from the warrant application process[.]’“ (Slip op. at 15.) The officer estimated that it would take at least 40 minutes to travel to the magistrate’s office, obtain a warrant, and return to the hospital.
- The officer was investigating the matter alone “and would have had to call and wait for another officer to arrive before he could travel to the magistrate to obtain a search warrant.” (Slip op. at 16.)
- The officer was concerned that if he left the defendant unattended or waited any longer for a blood draw, the hospital might administer pain medication that would “contaminat[e]” the defendant’s blood sample.
Predictable Outcome . . . But Curious Considerations. While some of the specific facts relied upon by the appellate court are curious, the holding in Granger isn’t particularly surprising. After all, the circumstances closely resemble those held to constitute an exigency in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966). In both circumstances, the defendant was taken to a hospital for medical treatment following a vehicular accident, and time was required to investigate the accident. While the “40 plus minute delay” that would have resulted in Granger had the officer sought a warrant is not particularly lengthy (Slip op. at 11), it arguably could have, under McNeely, ”significantly undermin[ed] the efficacy of the search,” and thus amounted to the sort of circumstance in which obtaining a warrant is “impractical.” McNeely, 133 S.Ct at 1561.
As for the curious facts, I’m not sure why the officer could not have left the defendant alone in the hospital while he applied for a warrant. [Update: Though not articulated in the trial court evidence or findings, an informed reader advised that departmental procedures typically require that a law enforcement officer who has probable cause to arrest a suspect for DWI have an officer watch the suspect patient at all times so the patient cannot leave the hospital voluntarily.] And given that the officer testified that he would not stop or interfere with a person’s medical treatment, it is not clear how his remaining in the hospital would have prevented pain medication from being administered if deemed necessary. Moreover, the State has had previous success in establishing the reliability of blood tests performed on samples obtained after pain medication had been administered. See State v. Armstrong, 203 N.C. App. 399, 418-19 (2010) (noting that State presented three witnesses who testified that the drug administered to the defendant did not increase his blood-alcohol level; cf. BJ’s Wholesale Club v. W.C.A.B. (Pearson), 43 A.3d 559, 564 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2012) (noting the lack of competent evidence that the prescription pain medication and narcotic taken by the claimant “in any way caused or contributed to her high blood alcohol level”).
The court’s reliance on these factors leaves me wondering whether it would have found an exigency if two officers had been present—even factoring in the same delay. Future jurisprudence will no doubt continue to clarify the parameters of exigency for warrantless blood draws.
