State of Minnesota v. William Robert Bernard, Jr. , 859 N.W.2d 762 ( 2015 )

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
A13-1245
Court of Appeals Gildea, C.J.
Dissenting, Page and Stras, JJ.
State of Minnesota,
Respondent,
vs. Filed: February 11, 2015
Office of Appellate Courts
William Robert Bernard, Jr.,
Appellant.
________________________
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and
James C. Backstrom, Dakota County Attorney, Tori K. Stewart, Assistant County
Attorney, Hastings, Minnesota, for respondent.
Jeffrey S. Sheridan, Strandemo, Sheridan & Dulas, P.A., Eagan, Minnesota; and
Steven T. Grimshaw, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellant.
Charles A. Ramsay, Daniel J. Koewler, Ramsay Law Firm, P.L.L.C., Roseville,
Minnesota, for amicus curiae Minnesota Society for Criminal Justice.
Teresa J. Nelson, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota;
and
Howard Bass, Bass Law Firm, PLLC, Burnsville, Minnesota; and
Nicole Moen, Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amicus curiae
American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
William A. Lemons, Minnesota County Attorneys Association, Saint Paul, Minnesota,
for amicus curiae Minnesota County of Attorneys Association.
________________________
1
SYLLABUS
1. Because a warrantless search of appellant’s breath would have been
constitutional as a search incident to a valid arrest, charging appellant with violating
Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2 (2014), for refusing to take a breathalyzer in this
circumstance does not implicate a fundamental right.
2. Because Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2, is a reasonable means to a
permissive object, it does not violate appellant’s right to due process under the United
States or Minnesota Constitutions.
Affirmed.
OPINION
GILDEA, Chief Justice.
Minnesota law makes it a crime for a driver to refuse a request to take a chemical
test to detect the presence of alcohol if certain conditions are met, including that the
driver has been validly arrested for driving while impaired. Minn. Stat. § 169A.20,
subd. 2 (2014). The question presented in this case is whether Minn. Stat. § 169A.20,
subd. 2 (“test refusal statute”), violates appellant William Robert Bernard’s right to due
process under the United States or Minnesota Constitutions by criminalizing his refusal to
consent to an unconstitutional search. The district court held the test refusal statute was
unconstitutional as applied to Bernard, but the court of appeals reversed. Because we
conclude that the breath test the police asked Bernard to take would have been
constitutional as a search incident to a valid arrest, and as a result, charging Bernard with
2
criminal test refusal does not implicate a fundamental right, and that the test refusal
statute is a reasonable means to a permissive object, we affirm.
This case arises from a report that police received on August 5, 2012, that three
intoxicated men were attempting to get a boat out of the water at a boat launch in South
Saint Paul. When police arrived at the boat launch, a witness told the officers that the
men’s truck became stuck in the river while they were trying to pull their boat out of the
water. The witness also said that the driver of the truck was in his underwear. The
officers approached the three men and saw that the truck’s axle was hanging over
the edge of the pavement. One of the men, appellant William Robert Bernard, was in
his underwear. The officers could smell a strong odor of alcohol coming from the group.
Bernard admitted to police that he had been drinking, but he and the other men denied
driving the truck. Several additional witnesses identified Bernard as the driver and
described him stumbling from the boat to the truck. As the officers questioned Bernard,
they noted that his breath smelled of alcohol, he had bloodshot, watery eyes, and he
was holding the keys to the truck. Bernard refused to perform field sobriety tests.
The officers arrested Bernard on suspicion of driving while impaired (“DWI”) and
took him to the South Saint Paul police station. The officers read Bernard the
Minnesota Implied Consent Advisory as required by Minn. Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 2
(2014). Specifically, police advised Bernard that Minnesota law required him to take a
chemical test, that refusal to take a test was a crime, and that he had a right to consult
with an attorney so long as there was not an unreasonable delay in the administration of
the test. Police also gave Bernard an opportunity to contact an attorney. Bernard called
3
his mother instead. After the call to his mother, Bernard told the officers he did not
need any more time and refused to take a breath test.
The State charged Bernard with two counts of first-degree test refusal, Minn. Stat.
§§ 169A.20, subd. 2, 169A.24 (2014). 1 Bernard filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that
the test refusal statute violated due process because the statute makes it a crime to refuse
an unreasonable, warrantless search of a driver’s breath. The district court ruled that the
test refusal statute was not unconstitutional on its face but dismissed the charges after
concluding that the police lacked a lawful basis to search Bernard without a warrant. The
court of appeals reversed, holding that prosecuting Bernard for refusal to take a breath
test did not violate his due process rights because the facts of the case established that
the officers had probable cause and could have secured a warrant to search Bernard’s
breath. We granted review.
I.
The test refusal statute, Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2, makes it a crime to refuse
a chemical test administered to detect the presence of alcohol in certain circumstances.
Id. (“It is a crime for any person to refuse to submit to a chemical test of the person’s
blood, breath, or urine under section 169A.51 (chemical tests for intoxication) or
169A.52 (test refusal or failure; revocation of license).”). These circumstances include
1
A person is guilty of first-degree driving while impaired or criminal test refusal if
that person “commits the violation within ten years of the first of three or more qualified
prior impaired driving incidents.” Minn. Stat. § 169A.24, subd. 1(1). A “qualified prior
impaired driving incident” includes prior impaired driving convictions. Minn. Stat.
§ 169A.03, subd. 22 (2014). Bernard has four impaired driving convictions since 2006.
4
when an officer has probable cause to believe the person was driving, operating, or in
physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and the police
have read the person the implied-consent advisory. See Minn. Stat. § 169A.51,
subds. 1-2.
Bernard argues that Minnesota’s test refusal statute, as applied to him, violates his
right to substantive due process because it criminalizes his Fourth Amendment right to
refuse an unconstitutional, warrantless search. 2 The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures.” 3 U.S. Const. amend. IV. The “ultimate measure”
of a permissible government search under the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.
Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652 (1995). Because Bernard bases
2
Bernard’s brief states that “the district court should have found the statute
unconstitutional on its face.” But Bernard makes no argument in his brief explaining
how the statute is unconstitutional in all applications. United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S.
739, 745 (1987) (stating that a facial challenge is “the most difficult challenge to mount
successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under
which the Act would be valid”). Instead, Bernard’s brief is devoted to arguing that
Minnesota’s test refusal law is unconstitutional as applied to him in this case. We
therefore treat Bernard’s appeal as an as-applied challenge. See Melina v. Chaplin,
327 N.W.2d 19, 20 (Minn. 1982) (stating that an issue “not argued in the briefs” is
waived). In addition, counsel for Bernard seemed to make a broader argument at the
hearing on this matter, asserting that the statute is unconstitutional on its face because
there is not a categorical exception to make all warrantless breath tests under the statute
constitutional. We will not consider this argument because Bernard did not raise it in his
brief. State v. Morrow, 834 N.W.2d 715, 724 n.4 (Minn. 2013) (stating that an issue
argued at oral argument, but not raised in the briefs is waived).
3
Bernard also references the Minnesota Constitution’s prohibition against
unreasonable searches and seizures. See Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. Bernard, however, is
not asking us to extend broader search and seizure protection under the Minnesota
Constitution than what the Fourth Amendment affords.
5
his due process argument on a Fourth Amendment violation, we turn first to the question
of whether a warrantless search of Bernard’s breath would have been constitutional under
the Fourth Amendment.
A.
The court of appeals held that the criminal charges against Bernard for refusing
the breath test were constitutional under the Fourth Amendment because the officer had
probable cause to believe that Bernard was driving under the influence and the officer
could have sought and received a warrant based on that evidence. State v. Bernard,
844 N.W.2d 41, 47 (Minn. App. 2014). The court did not find an exception to the
warrant requirement for the search of Bernard’s breath. Id. at 45–46. Instead, it
concluded that probable cause sufficient to support a warrant was enough to support the
criminal test-refusal charge. Id.
The court of appeals’ analysis is contrary to basic principles of Fourth Amendment
law. A warrantless search is generally unreasonable, unless it falls into one of the
recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. State v. Flowers, 734 N.W.2d 239,
248 (Minn. 2007). On several occasions, the U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly rejected
an exception to the warrant requirement based upon probable cause alone. See, e.g., Katz
v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 356–57 (1967); Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 96 (1964). We
have also recognized that there is no probable cause exception to the warrant
requirement. See State v. Ortega, 770 N.W.2d 145, 149 n.2 (Minn. 2009). Consistent
with this precedent, we refuse to embrace the rule the court of appeals applied in this
case.
6
Although the court of appeals’ reasoning does not provide a basis for a
constitutional search, the State advances several other theories for why a search of
Bernard’s breath would have been constitutional. One such argument is that police could
have conducted a warrantless search of Bernard’s breath as a search incident to a valid
arrest. Bernard contends that because there is nothing he can do to destroy the evidence
of alcohol concentration in his body, the search-incident-to-arrest exception does not
apply to a search of his breath under Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), and Missouri
v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013).
A search incident to a lawful arrest is a well-recognized exception to the warrant
requirement under the Fourth Amendment. Gant, 556 U.S. at 338; see also Weeks v.
United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914) (explaining that the right “to search the person of
the accused when legally arrested to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of crime”
has been “uniformly maintained” in many cases “under English and American law”),
overruled on other grounds by Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206 (1960). Under this
exception, the police are authorized to conduct a “full search of the person” who has been
lawfully arrested. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973). Our court has
allowed searches of the body beyond a pat down of those police have lawfully arrested.
For example, we have held that the warrantless inspection of an arrested man’s penis was
a valid search incident to arrest, noting that someone “lawfully subjected to a custodial
arrest retains no significant Fourth Amendment interest in the privacy of his person.”
State v. Riley, 303 Minn. 251, 254, 226 N.W.2d 907, 909 (1975). We have also upheld
the taking of fingerprints and photographs of someone who has been arrested. State v.
7
Bonner, 275 Minn. 280, 287, 146 N.W.2d 770, 775 (1966); see also State v. Emerson,
266 Minn. 217, 221, 123 N.W.2d 382, 385 (1963) (noting that subjecting an arrested man
to photographs, X-rays, and a medical examination did not violate his due process rights).
Taking a sample of an arrestee’s breath is not materially different from the
warrantless searches upheld in these cases. 4 Based on this authority, we conclude that a
warrantless breath test of Bernard would not have violated the Fourth Amendment
because it is a search incident to Bernard’s valid arrest.
Our conclusion that a warrantless breath test does not violate the Fourth
Amendment because it falls under the search-incident-to-a-valid-arrest exception is
consistent with decisions from other courts. See, e.g., United States v. Reid, 929 F.2d
990, 994 (4th Cir. 1991) (holding that breathalyzer tests were reasonable searches under
the Fourth Amendment because they were searches incident to lawful arrests); Burnett v.
Municipality of Anchorage, 806 F.2d 1447, 1450 (9th Cir. 1986) (“It is clear then that the
breathalyzer examination in question is an appropriate and reasonable search incident to
4
The dissent argues that our holding “fundamentally departs from longstanding
Fourth Amendment principles.” A search of an arrestee’s breath, however, is not a
departure from search-incident-to-arrest exception case law. Courts have upheld a
variety of searches that included the removal of biological material and searches within
the arrestee’s body as valid searches incident to arrest. See United States v. D’Amico,
408 F.2d 331, 332-33 (2d Cir. 1969) (upholding the warrantless seizure of a few strands
of the arrestee’s hair); Espinoza v. United States, 278 F.2d 802, 804 (5th Cir. 1960)
(upholding a forcible search of an arrestee’s mouth for narcotics). Courts have also
upheld chemical testing conducted on parts of a defendant’s body as a search incident to
arrest. See United States v. Johnson, 445 F.3d 793, 795–96 (5th Cir. 2006)
(upholding gunpowder residue testing done on defendant’s hands as a search incident to
arrest); Jones v. State, 74 A.3d 802, 812-13 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2013) (same and citing
other cases so holding); State v. Riley, 500 S.E.2d 524, 533 (W. Va. 1997) (same);
Sen v. State, 301 P.3d 106, 117–18 (Wyo. 2013) (same).
8
arrest which appellants have no constitutional right to refuse.”); Byrd v. Clark, 783 F.2d
1002, 1005 (11th Cir. 1986) (holding that “officers would have been justified in
conducting a [breath] search” under the search-incident-to-arrest exception); Wing v.
State, 268 P.3d 1105, 1110 (Alaska Ct. App. 2012) (holding that a breath test was a valid
search incident to arrest); State v. Dowdy, 332 S.W.3d 868, 870 (Mo. Ct. App. 2011)
(same); State v. Hill, No. 2008-CA-0011, 2009 WL 1485026, at *5 (Ohio Ct. App.
May 22, 2009) (same); Commonwealth, Dep’t of Transp. v. McFarren, 525 A.2d 1185,
1188 (Pa. 1987) (same). 5 Indeed, our research has not revealed a single case anywhere in
the country that holds that a warrantless breath test is not permissible under the
search-incident-to-a-valid-arrest exception. 6
5
The dissent claims that our conclusion is unprecedented because our holding
authorizes the collection of biological material from inside the defendant’s body as a
lawful search incident to arrest. The dissent is mistaken. As the cases we cited above
indicate, courts for nearly 30 years have found a breath test is a lawful search incident to
arrest. The dissent does not, and indeed cannot, cite any Supreme Court case holding that
a search incident to arrest does not apply to biological material.
6
The dissent is unable to find any contrary authority. Other courts, including the
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in the case cited by the dissent, have held that a blood
test cannot be justified by the search-incident-to-arrest exception. See, e.g., State v.
Baker, 502 A.2d 489, 492–93 (Me. 1985) (rejecting the search-incident-to-arrest
exception as justifying a warrantless blood draw, but upholding the test under the exigent
circumstances exception); State v. Stern, 846 A.2d 64, 68 (N.H. 2004) (suggesting that
exigent circumstances is the only exception that can justify a warrantless blood draw);
State v. Welch, 342 S.E.2d 789, 794 (N.C. 1986) (same); State v. Villarreal, ___ S.W.3d
___, 2014 WL 6734178, at *18 (Tex. Crim. App. Nov. 26, 2014) (holding that the search-
incident-to-arrest exception cannot justify a warrantless blood draw). Although not in the
context of driving while impaired, we have also determined that a warrantless blood
sample search was unconstitutional. State v. Campbell, 281 Minn. 1, 10, 161 N.W.2d 47,
54 (1968) (“[A]bsent unusual circumstances, an intrusion upon the body of a citizen
should properly be made only by authority of a warrant issued by a magistrate, for it is a
(Footnote continued on next page.)
9
B.
Bernard and the dissent argue, however, that the Supreme Court has been
retracting the scope of searches that are constitutional under the search-incident-to-arrest
exception. To support this argument, Bernard relies on Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332.
Gant, however, did not address a search of a person; Gant involved the search of the area
from which the defendant was arrested, specifically, the defendant’s automobile.
556 U.S. at 336. As Bernard notes, the Court discussed that the search-incident-to-a-
valid-arrest exception derives from concerns over officer safety and a desire to preserve
evidence. Id. at 338. Because the police had secured the defendant in the back of a
squad car, these concerns were nonexistent in Gant and the Court held that the
warrantless search of the defendant’s automobile did not fall under the search-incident-
to-arrest exception. Id. at 351.
Similar to Gant, Bernard argues that the State in this case cannot show that a
search of his breath was related to officer safety or concerns that he would destroy
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
search and seizure within the limitations of the Fourth Amendment.”). In this case,
however, the officers did not ask Bernard to submit to a blood test. Therefore, the
question of a blood or urine test incident to arrest is not before us, and we express no
opinion as to whether a blood or urine test of a suspected drunk driver could be justified
as a search incident to arrest. The differences between a blood test and a breath test are
material, and not the least of those differences is the less-invasive nature of breath testing.
See Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs. Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 626 (1989) (stating that, unlike
blood tests, breath tests do not “implicate[] significant privacy concerns”).
10
evidence. That may be true, 7 but it does not compel the conclusion that the search-
incident-to-arrest exception does not apply here. This is so because there are two distinct
types of searches that fall within the exception. Robinson, 414 U.S. at 224. First, police
may conduct a search “of the person of an arrestee by virtue of the lawful arrest.” Id.
Second, a search may be made of the area within the immediate control of the arrestee.
Id. It is the first type of search—the search of the arrestee’s person—that is relevant here.
There is no question that the Court has required either a concern for officer safety
or a concern over the preservation of evidence to support the constitutionality of a
warrantless search of the area where the defendant was arrested or a search of items near
the defendant. But the Court has not applied these concerns as a limitation on the
warrantless search of the body of a person validly arrested. A brief review of the Court’s
cases illustrates this distinction.
In Chimel v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court held that following an arrest, a
police officer may search the person of the arrestee and the area within his or her
immediate control to remove weapons and to seize evidence. 395 U.S. 752, 762–63
(1969). The Court explained that the search promoted officer safety and prevented the
destruction or concealment of evidence. Id. at 763. A search of the arrestee’s entire
home, however, was not justified as a search incident to arrest. Id.
A few years later, in United States v. Robinson, the Court clarified the justification
for the search of a person under the search-incident-to-arrest exception. In Robinson, a
7
The State makes no argument in this case that the breath test was necessary to
protect the safety of the officers or jailers from an intoxicated arrestee.
11
police officer arrested the defendant for driving with a revoked license and subsequently
performed a patdown search. 414 U.S. at 220-23. The officer pulled an unidentified
object from the defendant’s pocket and discovered that it was a cigarette package. Id. at
223. Upon opening the package, the officer found 14 capsules of heroin. Id. The Court
held that the police lawfully discovered the heroin as part of a search incident to arrest.
Id. at 236.
Through its holding, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the analysis from the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Id. at 237. The
court of appeals concluded that the search-incident-to-arrest exception did not apply.
United States v. Robinson, 471 F.2d 1082, 1108 (D.C. Cir. 1972). The exception did not
apply because the police did not have reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant,
who police arrested for driving after license revocation, would have any additional
evidence of the crime on his person, and because there was no evidence that police were
concerned for their safety when they searched the defendant. Id. at 1094, 1098 (D.C. Cir.
1972). The Supreme Court termed these limitations, within the context of a search of the
person of a validly arrested defendant, as “novel” and rejected them. Robinson, 441 U.S.
at 229. Rather than constricted by the limitations the appellate court had adopted, the
Supreme Court referred to the police’s “authority” to search an arrested person as
“unqualified.” Id. The Court held that “in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full
search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth
Amendment, but is also a ‘reasonable’ search under that Amendment.” Id. at 235
(emphasis added). In other words, in Robinson, the Court characterized a warrantless
12
search of a person as categorically reasonable under the Fourth Amendment as a search
incident to that person’s valid arrest. See McNeely, ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1559
n.3 (citing Robinson).
Subsequent cases have addressed and limited the second type of search under the
search-incident-to-arrest exception, a search of the area or things within the immediate
control of the arrestee, but they have not narrowed the exception with respect to a search
of the arrestee’s body. See Gant, 556 U.S. at 351 (holding that the “[p]olice may search a
vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching
distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search”); United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 14-15 (1977) (holding that a locked footlocker seized at the time
of a defendant’s arrest could not be justified as a search of the area within the arrestee’s
immediate control “if the ‘search is remote in time or place from the arrest’ ” or if the
police have exclusive control of the property and “there is no longer any danger that the
arrestee might gain access to the property” (quoting Preston v. United States, 376 U.S.
364, 367 (1964)), abrogated on other grounds by California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565
(1991).
Just last term, in Riley v. California, the Court addressed whether police could
search a “particular category of effects”—digital data found within a cell phone seized
during an arrest—without a warrant under the search-incident-to-arrest exception.
___ U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2485 (2014). In concluding that the police could not
search data on the cell phone as a search incident to arrest, the Court reaffirmed
“Robinson’s admonition that searches of a person incident to arrest . . . are reasonable
13
regardless of ‘the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence
would in fact be found.’ ” Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485 (quoting Robinson, 414 U.S. at
235). In a custodial arrest situation, those concerns are always present and do not need to
be specifically identified or proven to justify a search. Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484-85.
Therefore, far from overruling or narrowing Robinson, the Court recognized again
Robinson’s “categorical rule,” which allows a search of the person of an arrestee justified
only by the custodial arrest itself, and simply chose not to extend that categorical
exception to digital data found within a cellphone. Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484.
The dissent reads Riley much differently than we do. It claims the Supreme Court
in Riley “confirmed that when it refers to a search of a person incident to arrest, as in
Robinson, it is talking about personal property—that is, evidence—found on a person.”
As support, the dissent cites to Riley’s discussion of Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235, and
Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 15. The dissent misreads Riley. 8
8
The dissent’s interpretation of Riley makes no logical sense. Even though the
Court in Riley reaffirmed Robinson’s holding that “searches of a person” are lawful as
part of a search incident to arrest without any additional showing by the government, see
Riley, __ U.S. at __, 134 S. Ct. at 2485, the dissent asserts that the phrase “searches of a
person” actually refers to personal property found on a person. We think that if the
Supreme Court intended the phrase “searches of a person” to exclude searching the actual
person, i.e., their body, and to only include searching personal property found on a
person, the Court would have clearly said so. We are also hard pressed to understand
how the police can even search personal property found on a person without first
searching the actual person.
The dissent also claims that because the Supreme Court in Riley did not extend its
holding from Robinson regarding the type of objects found on a person that may be
categorically searched incident to arrest to digital content found within a cell phone, “the
only logical conclusion is that the removal of breath (or blood or urine) from the body to
(Footnote continued on next page.)
14
In discussing these two cases in Riley, the Court explained that in Robinson, “the
Court did not draw a line between a search of Robinson’s person and a further
examination of the cigarette pack found during that search.” Riley, ___ U.S. at ___,
134 S. Ct. at 2484. The Court went on to explain that in Chadwick, it did make a
distinction between a search of the person and the personal property, a footlocker that
was in the exclusive control of law enforcement officers, found during that search. Id. at
___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484. It “clarified that this exception [requiring no additional
justification for the search] was limited to ‘personal property . . . immediately associated
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
discover an arrestee’s blood alcohol level is not part of a search incident to arrest.” We
disagree. The search at issue in Riley was not a search of the defendant’s body, like the
search involved in this case, but a search of a physical object found on the defendant. In
addition, the search that occurs when a breath test is taken is clearly distinguishable from
the search of the contents of a person’s cell phone. In Riley, the Court emphasized that
even with the diminished expectation of privacy that comes with a custodial arrest, a
search of a cell phone would be intrusive. Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485. The
Court noted that “[m]odern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far
beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse” because
they contain vast quantities of highly personal information about a person. Id. at ___,
134 S. Ct. at 2488-89. The same cannot be said for a breathalyzer test, which reveals
nothing more than the level of alcohol in the arrestee’s bloodstream. See Skinner, 489
U.S. at 625.
Finally, our conclusion that Riley did not limit the full body search of an arrestee
authorized by Robinson is reinforced by other language in the opinion. The Court
reiterated later in Riley that “we do not overlook Robinson’s admonition that searches of
a person incident to arrest, ‘while based upon the need to disarm and to discover
evidence’ are reasonable regardless of ‘the probability in a particular arrest situation that
weapons or evidence would in fact be found.’ ” Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485
(quoting Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235). There would have been no need for the court to
reaffirm its holding from Robinson regarding “searches of a person incident to arrest” if
Robinson only authorized the search of personal property found on an arrestee. Id. at
___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485.
15
with the person of the arrestee.’ ” Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484 (quoting Chadwick,
433 U.S. at 15). The dissent relies on this last sentence to support its interpretation of
Riley.
When this quote is put in context, it is clear that the Court was not limiting the
categorical search of an arrestee’s body that may be performed as a search incident to
arrest. Instead, the Court was explaining that Chadwick had limited the type of property
that may be categorically searched as part of a search incident to arrest to property
immediately associated with the arrestee. Moreover, because the searches being
challenged in both Riley and Chadwick were not searches of the arrestee’s body itself, it
is hard to see how those cases can be read to have placed restrictions on such a search.
In short, we reject as unpersuasive both Bernard’s and the dissent’s arguments that
Gant and Riley require us to conclude that the search-incident-to-arrest exception does
not apply to the warrantless search of his breath.
Bernard also argues that the search-incident-to-arrest exception cannot apply to a
breath test under Missouri v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013). The U.S.
Supreme Court in McNeely, however, addressed only the exigent-circumstances
exception to the warrant requirement. Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1556 (addressing whether
the “natural metabolization of alcohol in the bloodstream presents a per se exigency that
justifies an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for nonconsensual
blood testing in all drunk-driving cases”). The government did not raise the search-
16
incident-to-arrest exception in its argument to the Supreme Court. 9 See Brief for
Petitioner, Missouri v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013) (No. 11-1425). In
fact, McNeely only mentioned the search-incident-to-arrest exception by contrasting it
with the exigent-circumstances exception to the warrant requirement, noting that unlike
the exigent-circumstances exception, the search-incident-to-arrest exception is categorical
and does not require a case-by-case assessment of the circumstances. 10 McNeely, ___
U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1559 n.3. Therefore, the Supreme Court’s decision in McNeely
does not foreclose our decision regarding the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the
warrant requirement.
Based on our analysis above, the warrantless search of Bernard’s breath would
have been reasonable as a search incident to his valid arrest. The undisputed facts of this
case establish that the police had probable cause to arrest Bernard for DWI. Indeed,
9
A group of state attorneys general did argue that the search in McNeely was
permissible under the search-incident-to-arrest exception. Brief for Delaware, et al. as
Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner at 7-20, Missouri v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S.
Ct. 1552 (2013) (No. 11-1425). The U.S. Supreme Court, however, does not consider
arguments “not raised by the parties or passed on by the lower courts.” F.T.C. v. Phoebe
Putney Health Sys., Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1003, 1010 n.4 (2013).
10
Specifically, the Supreme Court recognized that “searches of a person incident to a
lawful arrest” are part of a “limited class of traditional exceptions to the warrant
requirement that apply categorically and thus do not require an assessment of whether the
policy justifications underlying the exception . . . are implicated in a particular case.”
McNeely, ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1559 n.3. The dissent is therefore mistaken that
it “strains credulity to suppose” that the search-incident-to-arrest exception would apply
to a future warrantless breath test case because the exception “turns on the same rationale
regarding the preservation of evidence that the Supreme Court explicitly rejected in
McNeely.” The Supreme Court reaffirmed in McNeely that a search of a person incident
to arrest is categorically justified not by a specific rationale for the preservation of
evidence, but by a lawful arrest.
17
Bernard does not dispute that the police validly arrested him before asking him to submit
to a breathalyzer test. The breath test was a search of Bernard’s person that would have
been no more intrusive than the myriad of other searches of the body that we and other
courts have upheld as searches incident to a valid arrest. See, e.g., Riley, 303 Minn. at
254, 226 N.W.2d at 909. We therefore conclude that a breath test is a search of the
arrestee’s person and is justified by virtue of the lawful arrest itself. As a result, we hold
that a warrantless breath test of Bernard would have been constitutional under the search-
incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. 11
11
The dissent argues that our holding ignores the U.S. Supreme Court’s narrowing
of the search-incident-to-arrest exception. The Supreme Court, however, has not been
narrowing the search-incident-to-arrest exception as it applies to searches of the
arrestee’s person. Instead, the Court has been clarifying the exception’s application to a
search of the area or things within the arrestee’s immediate control. See Riley, ___ U.S.
at ___ , 134 S. Ct. at 2484-85 (holding that searching the data on a cell phone was not a
search incident to arrest, but recognizing a categorical exception justifying searches of an
arrestee’s person); Gant, 556 U.S. at 339 (discussing searches incident to arrest in the
context of a search of an automobile).
Further, despite narrowing the scope of the exception in terms of searches other
than of the defendant’s body, the U.S. Supreme Court has not overruled Robinson, and
“only the Supreme Court may overrule one of its own decisions.” State v. Brist,
812 N.W.2d 51, 56 (Minn. 2012) (citing Thurston Motor Lines, Inc. v. Jordan K. Rand,
Ltd., 460 U.S. 533, 535 (1983)). The Supreme Court has stated, “If a precedent of this
Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some
other line of decisions, [courts] should follow the case which directly controls . . . .”
Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989).
Robinson’s discussion of searches of the person incident to arrest is on point in this case.
The Supreme Court has not overruled Robinson, and so we will follow it. Under
Robinson, a search of Bernard’s breath incident to his arrest is a permissible search by
virtue of his lawful arrest.
18
II.
We turn next to Bernard’s substantive due process challenge to the test refusal
statute. The due process clauses of the United States and Minnesota Constitutions
“prohibit ‘certain arbitrary, wrongful government actions, regardless of the fairness of the
procedures used to implement them.’ ” Boutin v. LaFleur, 591 N.W.2d 711, 716 (Minn.
1999) (quoting Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 125 (1990)); see also U.S. Const.
amends. V, XIV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 7. When assessing a due process challenge, the
analysis we apply depends on whether the statute implicates a fundamental right. Boutin,
591 N.W.2d at 716. Having decided that the search of Bernard’s breath would have been
constitutional, we find no fundamental right at issue here, as Bernard does not have a
fundamental right to refuse a constitutional search. See Washington v. Glucksberg,
521 U.S. 702, 720-21 (1997) (stating that fundamental rights for purposes of substantive
due process are those rights and liberties “which are, objectively, deeply rooted in this
Nation’s history and tradition” and are “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”
(citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
If a statute does not implicate a fundamental right, we assess its constitutionality
using rational basis review. See State v. Behl, 564 N.W.2d 560, 567 (Minn. 1997). To
survive a due process challenge using rational basis review, the statute must not be
“arbitrary or capricious.” Id. We will uphold the statute as long as it is “a reasonable
means to a permissive object.” Id. We review the constitutionality of statutes de novo.
State v. Henning, 666 N.W.2d 379, 382 (Minn. 2003).
19
The object of the Minnesota Impaired Driving Code, Minn. Stat. § 169A.01 et
seq., is public safety. We have recognized the “severe threat” that impaired drivers pose
to the public’s safety. Heddan v. Dirkswager, 336 N.W.2d 54, 62–63 (Minn. 1983).
Indeed, 30 percent of traffic deaths in Minnesota in 2013 were alcohol-related. Minn.
Dep’t of Pub. Safety, Minnesota Motor Vehicle Crash Facts 2013 39 (2014). And we
have said that “the state has a compelling interest in highway safety justifying efforts to
keep impaired drivers off the road.” Bendorf v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 727 N.W.2d 410,
417 (Minn. 2007) (citing Heddan, 336 N.W.2d at 63). Securing effective chemical tests
to determine whether drivers suspected of being under the influence are in fact driving
while impaired is reasonably related to the government’s interest in keeping impaired
drivers off the road.
Encouraging drivers to submit to such tests, through criminalizing their refusal,
furthers that interest. In fact, one study concludes that alcohol concentration test refusals
compromise the enforcement of drunk-driving laws. Ralph K. Jones & James L. Nichols,
Breath Test Refusals and Their Effect on DWI Prosecution 42 (2012) (concluding that
“[a]s statewide refusal rates increased, overall conviction rates . . . decreased”). And
another study finds that Minnesota’s test refusal statute has led to a lower refusal rate and
an increased conviction rate for alcohol-related offenses, including driving under the
influence and test refusal. H.L. Ross, et al., Causes and Consequences of Implied
Consent Test Refusal, 11 Alcohol, Drugs and Driving 57, 71–72 (1995).
In sum, it is rational to conclude that criminalizing the refusal to submit to a breath
test relates to the State’s ability to prosecute drunk drivers and keep Minnesota roads
20
safe. We therefore hold that the test refusal statute is a reasonable means to a permissive
object and that it passes rational basis review.
Affirmed.
21
DISSENT
PAGE, Justice, and STRAS, Justice (dissenting jointly).
We respectfully dissent. The court apparently wishes that we lived in a world
without Missouri v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013), and one in which
there are no limits to the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine. But we do not live in such a
world. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided McNeely and, over the past
several decades, has limited searches incident to arrest. Even though the court’s opinion
strikes a confident tone, the truth of the matter is that its decision is borne of obstinance,
not law. The court today fundamentally departs from longstanding Fourth Amendment
principles, and nullifies the warrant requirement in nearly every drunk-driving case.
I.
As justices of a state supreme court, we are bound to follow decisions of the
Supreme Court of the United States on questions of federal law. U.S. Const. Art. VI.
Rather than carrying out its duty, the court selectively quotes from some Supreme Court
decisions and ignores others to reach a decision that is at odds with Supreme Court
precedent on the scope of searches incident to arrest. Two erroneous assumptions
permeate the court’s analysis. First, the court assumes, without support, that biological
material may be taken from inside a person’s body as part of a search incident to arrest.
Second, the court assumes, again without support, that the rationales underlying the
search-incident-to-arrest exception—officer safety and preventing the destruction of
evidence, see Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-63 (1969)—do not apply to
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searches of a person. In the end, the court ultimately arrives at a decision that is as
notable for its disregard of Supreme Court precedent as it is for its defective logic.
A.
To start with the court’s first assumption, the Supreme Court has never implied,
much less stated, that the search-incident-to-arrest exception extends to the forcible
removal of substances from within a person’s body.
The court relies almost exclusively on United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218
(1973), a search-incident-to-arrest case that is not as expansive as the court claims. In
approving the warrantless breath test that Bernard refused in this case, the court seizes
upon Robinson’s statement that, “in the case of a lawful custodial arrest[,] a full search of
the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment,
but is also a ‘reasonable’ search under that Amendment.” Id. at 235. The court then
insists, contrary to authority, that the Supreme Court has not subsequently “narrowed the
[search-incident-to-arrest] exception with respect to a search of the arrestee’s body.” The
court starts from the premise that the Supreme Court intended a “full search of the
person” to be so broadly defined as to include the compelled removal of biological
material from inside the body, and then effectively ignores everything the Supreme Court
has said since Robinson about searches incident to arrest.
Although Robinson’s language is broad, it is not unlimited, and it does not support
the invasive search at issue in this case. In Robinson, the police arrested the defendant
for driving after his license had been revoked. 414 U.S. at 220-21. In accordance with
standard procedures, an officer searched Robinson and found a cigarette package that
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contained heroin in Robinson’s coat pocket. Id. at 221-23. At Robinson’s trial, the trial
court admitted the heroin into evidence, and Robinson was convicted, largely because of
the heroin found during the search incident to his arrest. Id. at 223. The Supreme Court
held that a search of a person incident to arrest is not limited to a protective frisk for
weapons, as in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), and may extend to the preservation of
evidence of the particular crime for which the arrest was made. Id. at 234-35.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court concluded that it was the “lawful arrest” itself that
provided the authority to search, and that the search conducted in Robinson was
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 235.
In the context of this case, Robinson is more notable for its facts than for what it
said. Despite the Supreme Court’s broad language, the search in Robinson was
unremarkable. The “full search of the person” involved only a pat down and an
examination of the contents of Robinson’s pockets, not an invasive search to retrieve
biological material from within his body. See id. at 222-23; see also Illinois v. Lafayette,
462 U.S. 640, 645 (1983) (stating that “the interests supporting a search incident to arrest
would hardly justify disrobing an arrestee on the street”).
Any doubt about the bounds of Robinson vanished after Riley v. California, ___
U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), when the Supreme Court confirmed that, when it refers
to a search of a person incident to arrest, as in Robinson, it is talking about personal
property—that is, evidence—found on a person. In Riley, a case involving the digital
content of cell phones, the Supreme Court reviewed the history of the search-incident-to-
arrest exception. Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2482-84. After discussing several cases, the
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Supreme Court turned its attention to Robinson. Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2483-84. It
explained that, four years after Robinson, it “[had] clarified that [the search-incident-to-
arrest] exception was limited to ‘personal property . . . immediately associated with the
person of the arrestee.’ ” Id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484 (quoting United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 15 (1977) (emphasis added)); see also Robinson, 414 U.S. at 226
(an arresting officer may “search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person”
(quoting Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-63 (1969)) (emphasis added)). The
Supreme Court repeated its cautionary note about the proper scope of a search incident to
arrest just four paragraphs later when it said that, “while Robinson’s categorical rule
strikes the appropriate balance in the context of physical objects, neither of its rationales
has much force with respect to digital content on cell phones.” Riley, ___ U.S. at ___,
134 S. Ct. at 2484 (emphasis added); see also id. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2489 (“A
conclusion that inspecting the contents of an arrestee’s pockets works no substantial
additional intrusion on privacy beyond the arrest itself may make sense as applied to
physical items, but any extension of that reasoning to digital data has to rest on its own
bottom.”). Given Riley’s clarification that Robinson applies only to physical evidence
found on a person’s body—and not digital content found on cell phones—the only logical
conclusion is that the removal of breath (or blood or urine) from the body to discover an
arrestee’s blood alcohol level is not part of a search incident to arrest. 1
1
One could point to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Maryland v. King, ___
U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1958 (2013), as support for the warrantless breath test at issue in this
case. After all, in King, the Supreme Court upheld a warrantless search by which jail
(Footnote continued on next page.)
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The court nevertheless reads Robinson as authority for conducting any search of
an arrestee, even one that collects material from within a person’s body. In doing so, the
court fails to address two flaws in its approach. First, molecules of ethanol (C2H6O) in a
person’s blood are not “physical objects” in the same sense as a “crumpled up cigarette
package,” see Robinson, 414. U.S. at 223, coins, see Chimel, 395 U.S. at 754, or a bag of
cocaine, see Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 336 (2009). It seems obvious that, similar to
the digital content of a cell phone, alveolar “deep-lung” air “differ[s] in both a
(Footnote continued from previous page.)
officials used a buccal swab to collect DNA from an arrestee under a Maryland statute.
Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1980. The statute, the Maryland DNA Collection Act, required
officers to collect a DNA sample from arrestees charged with serious crimes, but
critically, the Maryland law did not subject the collection requirement to the discretion of
officers. Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1970. The Supreme Court sanctioned the warrantless
search in King as a routine booking procedure, not as a search incident to arrest. Id. at
___, 133 S. Ct. at 1971, 1977. King therefore does not permit a warrantless search, as
here, when officers have discretion to conduct the search based on individualized
suspicion and concerns about evidence preservation, rather than on an administrative
interest in identifying the arrestee.
Likewise, Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989),
although at least involving a breath test, is a case that arose under a different branch of
Fourth Amendment doctrine. In Skinner, the Supreme Court upheld a warrantless breath
test for railroad employees who worked in a “regulated industry” and had effectively
“consent[ed] to significant restrictions in [their] freedom of movement where necessary
for [their] employment.” See id. at 624-25, 628. The triggering event for the breath test
conducted in Skinner was a “major train accident,” not an arrest, and its purpose was
safety, not prosecution. Id. at 609, 621, 622 n.6. Skinner was, in other words, a “special
needs” case, and like King, the Supreme Court recognized that it was departing from “the
usual warrant and probable-cause requirements” applicable to law enforcement. Id. at
620 (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873-74 (1987)). In this case, the State
has not identified a “special need” for the warrantless breath test it sought to administer
to Bernard.
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quantitative and a qualitative sense from other objects that might be kept on an arrestee’s
person.” See Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2489. 2
Second, the court fails to acknowledge that a search incident to arrest is limited to
evidence found on an arrestee’s body. Typically, a person taking a breath test must insert
a tube into his or her mouth and then comply with the officer’s instructions to blow into
the tube at a specified rate until the breathalyzer has had sufficient time to analyze a
sample of deep-lung air. See, e.g., California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 481 (1984)
(describing requirements for administering the Intoxilyzer). Failure to produce an
“adequate . . . sample” is punishable by up to 7 years in prison. See Minn. Stat.
§§ 169A.20, subds. 2-3, 169A.51-52 (2014). The court does not cite a single Supreme
Court case authorizing such a profound intrusion into a person’s bodily integrity during a
search incident to arrest. Cf. Skinner, 489 U.S. 616-17 (recognizing that testing deep-
lung breath, like conducting a blood test, raises “similar concerns about bodily
integrity”); King, ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1989 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“I doubt that
the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open
their mouths for royal inspection.”). The reason is that no such case exists.
2
Even if breath can somehow be considered a “physical object” that is “personal
property,” any breath test that could have been performed in this case would still not
qualify as a search incident to arrest because it would have been “remote in time or place
from the arrest.” United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 15 (1977) (quoting Preston v.
United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367 (1964)), abrogated on other grounds by California v.
Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991). In fact, that is precisely what the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals, the court of last resort for criminal matters in Texas, recently recognized in the
context of a blood draw. See State v. Villarreal, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2014 WL 6734178, at
*15 (Tex. Crim. App. Nov. 26, 2014) (quoting Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 15).
D-6
A warrantless search is unreasonable unless it falls within a specific exception to
the warrant requirement. Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2482. Instead of
acknowledging that its decision repudiates longstanding Fourth Amendment principles,
the court responds by saying that the Supreme Court has never explicitly forbidden the
particular type of warrantless search at issue in this case. Such reasoning, however, turns
the warrant requirement on its head, allowing it to serve as a presumption in favor of
warrantless searches rather than as a safeguard against them.
B.
The court’s second assumption is equally extreme: that the rationales for the
search-incident-to-arrest exception—officer safety and preventing the destruction of
evidence—do not apply to searches of a person. Again, the court’s assumption is in
conflict with Supreme Court precedent.
In Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969), the Supreme Court considered
whether an arrest of a person in his home permitted the police to search the entirety of the
arrestee’s three-bedroom home, including his attic and garage. The Supreme Court
invalidated the search and identified the two rationales that support searches incident to
arrest: protecting the safety of officers and preventing the concealment and destruction
of evidence. Id. at 762-63. Those rationales allow an arresting officer, without a warrant,
to (1) “search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons,” (2) “search for and
seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or
destruction,” and (3) search in “the area into which an arrestee might reach.” Id.
(emphasis added); see also Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2483 (quoting Chimel,
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395 U.S. at 762-63). The court now contends, however, that neither rationale applies to a
search for evidence on an arrestee’s person, but only to searches of the area under the
arrestee’s immediate control.
As support, the court seizes on Riley’s acknowledgement of “Robinson’s
admonition that searches of a person incident to arrest, ‘while based upon the need to
disarm and to discover evidence,’ are reasonable regardless of ‘the probability in a
particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found.’ ” ___ U.S. at
___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485 (quoting Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235). The court references this
statement as proof that, “far from overruling or narrowing Robinson, the [Supreme] Court
[in Riley] recognized again Robinson’s ‘categorical rule’ allowing a search of the person
of an arrestee justified only by the custodial arrest itself . . . .”
The court misinterprets Robinson, and entirely ignores the remainder of Riley,
including its holding, which “decline[d] to extend Robinson to searches of data on cell
phones” based on the rationales from Chimel. ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2485. As
the Supreme Court explained, Robinson rejected the need for “case-by-case adjudication”
to determine whether the Chimel rationales were present in a “particular arrest situation.”
Id. at ___, ___, 134 S Ct. at 2483, 2485; see also United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1,
14-15 (1977) (explaining that Robinson eliminated the need for an arresting officer “to
calculate the probability that weapons or destructible evidence may be involved” before
conducting a search incident to arrest), abrogated on other grounds by California v.
Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991). But neither Robinson nor Riley rejected the Chimel
rationales as bookends for the circumstances under which the search-incident-to-arrest
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exception applies. 3 See, e.g., Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 (1998) (rejecting the
search-incident-to-arrest exception in the context of issuance of citations, “a situation
where the concern for officer safety is not present to the same extent and the concern for
destruction or loss of evidence is not present at all.”). After all, the Supreme Court
framed the question in Riley as “whether application of the search incident to arrest
doctrine to this particular category of effects would ‘untether the rule from the
justifications underlying the Chimel exception.’ ” Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2485 (emphasis
added) (quoting Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 343 (2009)).
More broadly, it is clear that the court needs to cast aside the Chimel rationales to
reach its decision today. The only justification for allowing police to conduct a
warrantless breath test is the preservation of evidence due to the natural dissipation of
alcohol from a person’s bloodstream. In McNeely, however, the Supreme Court
specifically rejected the proposition that the natural metabolization of alcohol constitutes
a per se exigency justifying a warrantless blood test. ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1568.
It explained that blood alcohol testing
is different in critical respects from other destruction-of-evidence cases in
which the police are truly confronted with a “ ‘now-or-never’ ” situation.
In contrast to, for example, circumstances in which the suspect has control
3
In fact, in an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, Justice
Alito wrote separately to advance a variation on the court’s argument today: that “the
[search-incident-to-arrest] rule is not closely linked to the need for officer safety and
evidence preservation” because “these rationales fail to explain the rule’s well-recognized
scope.” Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2496 (Alito, J., concurring). Whatever the
merits of Justice Alito’s argument, it is notable that no other member of the Supreme
Court joined Justice Alito’s concurrence, and that the majority opinion in Riley continued
to adhere to the two rationales from Chimel.
D-9
over easily disposable evidence, BAC evidence from a drunk-driving
suspect naturally dissipates over time in a gradual and relatively predictable
manner.
Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1561 (internal citations omitted). The Supreme Court then made
clear that officers are required to get a warrant to test a suspect’s blood alcohol content if
they can reasonably do so under the circumstances. Id. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1561-63; see
also Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2495 (stating that the answer to “what police
must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to arrest is accordingly simple—get
a warrant”). It strains credulity to suppose that, after the Supreme Court carefully
examined the exigent-circumstances exception in McNeely, it would conclude in some
future case that the search would have been justified anyway under the search-incident-
to-arrest doctrine, which according to Chimel and Riley turns on the same rationale
regarding the preservation of evidence that the Supreme Court explicitly rejected in
McNeely. See ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1557 (noting that McNeely was under arrest
when the blood test was performed); see also State v. Villarreal, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2014
WL 6734178, at *15 (Tex. Crim. App. Nov. 26, 2014) (holding that the search-incident-
to-arrest exception “is inapplicable” to a warrantless blood draw because neither of the
two Chimel justifications applies). In fact, by casting aside Chimel’s rationales and
creating a novel bright-line rule, the court simply readopts a per se exigency under a
different name. See State v. Shriner, 751 N.W.2d 538, 549 (Minn. 2008) (establishing
the evanescent nature of alcohol in the bloodstream as a single-factor exigency),
abrogated by Missouri v. McNeely, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1552, 1558 & n.2 (2013) (no
such single-factor exigency exists).
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II.
The only remaining question is whether the test-refusal statute, which requires a
person to submit to a breath, blood, or urine test upon suspicion of drunk driving or face
stiff criminal penalties, is constitutional. See Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20; 169A.24; 169A.25;
169A.26 (2014) (making the crime of test refusal a first-, second-, or third-degree
driving-while-impaired offense depending on whether an aggravating factor is present).
We conclude that, in Bernard’s case, it is not.
In Camara v. Municipal Court of S.F., 387 U.S. 523 (1967), the Supreme Court
held that a state cannot criminalize the refusal to consent to an illegal warrantless search.
Id. at 540; see also See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541 (1967) (companion case). The
appellant in Camara was charged with a misdemeanor offense when he refused to allow
housing inspectors to enter his residence to conduct a search of the premises without a
warrant. 387 U.S. at 525-27. The prosecution arose out of a San Francisco ordinance
that allowed certain “[a]uthorized employees” of the City to “enter, at reasonable times,
any building, structure, or premises in the City to perform any duty imposed upon them
by the Municipal Code.” Id. at 526, 527 n.2. Once the Supreme Court concluded that the
search was illegal, it held that the “appellant had a constitutional right to insist that the
inspectors obtain a warrant to search and that appellant may not constitutionally be
convicted for refusing to consent to the inspection.” Id. at 540.
There are, to be sure, instances in which it would be constitutional to apply the
test-refusal statute to impose criminal penalties on suspected drunk drivers who refuse a
blood, breath, or urine test. But those instances are limited to circumstances in which the
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underlying search would be constitutional, such as those identified in McNeely when,
under a totality of the circumstances, it is unreasonable for officers to obtain a warrant.
McNeely, ___U.S.___, 133 S. Ct. at 1561. The State does not argue in this case that it
was unreasonable for the officers to obtain a warrant under the totality of the
circumstances. Accordingly, because the search in this case was not a valid warrantless
search, and the State may not constitutionally convict persons who exercise their
“constitutional right to insist that [police] obtain a warrant,” Camara, 387 U.S. at 540, we
would affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss the two counts of test refusal against
Bernard.
For the foregoing reasons, we respectfully dissent.
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