Cal.4th: Davis GFE applies to pre-McNeely blood testing

California’s 4th District applies Davis good faith exception to pre-McNeely blood testing. People v. Harris, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 154 (4th Dist. February 19, 2015):

Even assuming that McNeely is applicable and that defendant’s warrantless blood test may only be supported by exigent circumstances, which the People did not argue and the facts do not demonstrate, we conclude that the evidence in this case may not be suppressed because the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies here. Defendant’s blood test was taken before the United States Supreme Court decided McNeely, and at a time when the California courts uniformly held that probable cause of DUI and the natural dissipation of alcohol or drugs in the bloodstream was sufficient to justify a warrantless blood test. Because the police obtained defendant’s blood sample without a warrant in reliance of binding precedent, excluding the evidence in this case would not achieve the exclusionary rule’s purpose of deterring future Fourth Amendment violations.