{"id":2945,"date":"2009-04-14T15:07:28","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T08:48:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T08:48:17","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2945","title":{"rendered":"MN: Driving and PC is enough to justify a warrantless search for BAC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Request to see a driver’s license of a person driving a car invokes no constitutional protections under the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. Defendant consented to the officer looking in the glove compartment for proof of insurance, and that led to a plain view. Shaw v. State<\/a>, 2009 WY 18, 201 P.3d 1108 (2009).*<\/p>\n

“Minnesota’s criminal test-refusal statute does not violate the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches because exigent circumstances created by rapidly dissipating evidence of blood-alcohol concentration justify the warrantless search.” The underlying offense does not need to a felony. State v. Netland<\/a>, 762 N.W.2d 202 (Minn. 2009):<\/p>\n

In Shriner, we held that the “rapid, natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood creates single-factor exigent circumstances that will justify the police taking a warrantless, nonconsensual blood draw from a defendant, provided that the police have probable cause to believe the defendant committed criminal vehicular homicide or operation.” Shriner, 751 N.W.2d at 549-50. This conclusion rested squarely on our prior jurisprudence upholding warrantless searches if evidence would be destroyed during the time required to obtain a warrant. Id. at 548. We further recognized that in the case of dissipating alcohol, even the delay required to obtain a telephonic warrant creates an unreasonable burden for law enforcement to evaluate how much time must pass before the evidence disappears. Id. at 549.<\/p>\n

Netland argues that Shriner does not compel a result in this case because the police in Shriner had probable cause to believe that Shriner committed criminal vehicular operation. Id. at 546, 548. The officer in this case did not have probable cause to believe that Netland had committed a felony when he invoked the implied-consent statute. But exigency does not depend on the underlying crime; rather, the evanescent nature of the evidence creates the conditions that justify a warrantless search. It is the chemical reaction of alcohol in the person’s body that drives the conclusion on exigency, regardless of the criminal statute under which the person may be prosecuted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}