Cal.4: State’s argument of exigency for DUI blood draw boiled down to “always there’s exigency”

“Ultimately, Mitchell’s references to ‘rival priorities,’ ‘more pressing needs,’ and ‘other pressing duties’ of police officers (588 U.S. at p. 856; see id. at pp. 840, 851), must be understood in the context of the opinion’s focus on an officer responding to the natural chaos that pervades the scene of automobile accident. And this focus helps explain the flaw in the magistrate’s reasoning when she suggested that a finding of exigency could be based on the fact that ‘[e]very minute that Officer Pope was there [at the hospital], he was not out on the freeways.’ Accepting that theory, the exigency exception would swallow the warrant rule because the time an officer spends obtaining a warrant could always be used for other police duties. Yet we must remember that obtaining warrants before conducting searches and seizures is a crucial part of a police officer’s duties, not a distraction from them, and Mitchell does not suggest otherwise. Rather, Mitchell only observes that traffic accidents, by their very nature, often create competing demands on an officer’s time, which will be especially relevant in establishing exigent circumstances.” People v. Castro, 2026 Cal. App. LEXIS 403 (4th Dist. July 1, 2026).