{"id":11198,"date":"2014-04-24T05:32:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T10:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=11198"},"modified":"2014-04-24T09:17:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T14:17:04","slug":"wa-comment-on-refusal-to-take-bac-test-didnt-violate-constitutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=11198","title":{"rendered":"WA: Comment on refusal to take BAC test didn&#8217;t violate constitutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Assuming that a field sobriety test is a search, this was reasonable and based on reasonable suspicion. Comment on refusal to take a BAC test was not unconstitutional because there was no constitutional right not to take the test. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.wa.gov\/opinions\/index.cfm?fa=opinions.showOpinion&#038;filename=696131MAJ\">State v. Mecham<\/a>, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 934 (April 21, 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assuming that a field sobriety test is a search, this was reasonable and based on reasonable suspicion. Comment on refusal to take a BAC test was not unconstitutional because there was no constitutional right not to take the test. State &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=11198\">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":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11198"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11213,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11198\/revisions\/11213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}