{"id":12262,"date":"2014-06-26T09:32:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=12262"},"modified":"2014-06-27T08:09:02","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T13:09:02","slug":"wa-state-can-comment-on-refusal-to-take-fst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=12262","title":{"rendered":"WA: State can comment at trial on refusal to take FST"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because there is no constitutional right to refuse an FST, the state can comment on it at trial. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.wa.gov\/opinions\/pdf\/696131.pdf\">State v. Mecham<\/a>, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 1541 (June 23, 2014):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00b639 Mecham did not have a constitutional right to refuse consent to the field sobriety test, because the test was reasonable pursuant to a Terry stop. Mecham had only a common law right to refuse consent to the field sobriety test. Stalsbroten, 138 Wn.2d at 237. Such refusal is not testimonial under Stalsbroten, but \u201c\u2018is best described as conduct indicating a consciousness of guilt.\u2019\u201d Id. at 234 (quoting Newhouse v. Misterly, 415 F.2d 514, 518 (9th cir. 1969)).<\/p>\n<p>\u00b640 We hold that the State did not impermissibly comment on Mecham&#8217;s refusal to perform the field sobriety test, because there was no constitutional right for Mecham to refuse the test.6<\/p>\n<p>6 See also Neville, 459 U.S. at 566 (holding that due process is not violated when the government commented on the defendant&#8217;s refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test, because the government did not mislead the defendant into believing his refusal could not be used against him in a later trial).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because there is no constitutional right to refuse an FST, the state can comment on it at trial. State v. Mecham, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 1541 (June 23, 2014): \u00b639 Mecham did not have a constitutional right to refuse consent &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=12262\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12262"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12290,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12262\/revisions\/12290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}