SBAND Seminar Materials DUI Case Law Update Materials | Page 2

C.

Arrest

II.

Search Issues

1) Missouri v. McNeely, 133 S. Ct. 1552 (2013)
Prosecutor:
Defense:

John Koester
Nicole Saharsky - Amicus for the United States
Steven Shapiro

Facts:
A Missouri police officer stopped McNeely’s truck after observing it
exceed the posted speed limit and repeatedly cross the centerline at 2:08 a.m. The officer
noticed several signs that McNeely was intoxicated, including McNeely’s bloodshot eyes,
his slurred speech, and the smell of alcohol on his breath. McNeely acknowledged to the
officer that he had consumed “a couple of beers” at a bar and he appeared unsteady on his
feet when he exited the truck. After McNeely performed poorly on a battery of fieldsobriety tests and declined to use a portable breath-test device to measure his blood
alcohol concentration (BAC), the officer placed him under arrest.
The officer began to transport McNeely to the station house. But when McNeely
indicated that he would again refuse to provide a breath sample, the officer changed
course and took McNeely to a nearby hospital for blood testing. The officer did not
attempt to secure a warrant. Upon arrival at the hospital, the officer asked McNeely
whether he would consent to a blood test. Reading from a standard implied consent form,
the officer explained to McNeely that under state law refusal to submit voluntarily to the
test would lead to the immediate revocation of his driver’s license for one year and could
be used against him in a future prosecution. McNeely nonetheless refused. The officer
then directed a hospital lab technician to take a blood sample, and the sample was secured
at approximately 2:35 a.m. Subsequent laboratory testing measured McNeely’s BAC at
0.154 percent.
Procedure: The district court suppressed the results of the test concluding there were
no circumstances to suggest the officer faced an emergency in which he could not
practically obtain a warrant. The Missouri Supreme Court Affirmed. Missouri appealed
to the US Supreme Court arguing natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream
establishes a per se exigency that suffices on its own to justify an exception to the warrant
requirement for nonconsensual blood testing in drunk-driving investigations. The US
Supreme Court AFFIRMED.
Holding:
The warrant requirement is subject to exceptions. One well-recognized
exception is when the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so
compelling that a warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment. To determine whether a law enforcement officer faced an emergency that
justified acting without a warrant, the Court looks to the totality of circumstances. Some
circumstance may make the dissipation of alcohol from the bloodstream an exigency that

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