Oregon Supreme Court to rule on "implied-consent" blood-tests

[SilverFeniks]

I tried to post this over in Legal Discussion, but 75% of it was cut off and I can't edit threads there .. Mods, feel free to shift this full post there if appropriate
2nd edit: looks like I can't post the full text, so I'll just have to include a link.
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Not relevant to 99.7% of Bluelighters, but the ruling could be significant.
Feel free to post up regarding your own state/Jurisdiction's rules on forced drug testing (statute or direct experience/knowledge only please!)

Oregon's high court explores the limits of consent
(mobile link - sorry, I don't have a computer, I'm a PoOregonian :D)

As referenced, if you refuse a breathalyzer when asked in Oregon, you get a $1000 citation and 1-year license suspension when convicted. I have seen people get off on the DUI even after refusing the breath test (but only after hiring a lawyer and taking the case to trial).
A couple years ago, an Oregon cop (in Corvallis, I think) got in trouble for consistantly arresting people for DUI even after they blew under 0.08 BAC, claiming they were still impaired/suspect. Arrogance like this makes the above case potentially significant. Imagine being stopped late at night when you're a bit tired, arrested without cause, having your car impounded, being booked in jail, and then charged with DUI over some week-old cannabis or prescribed medicines in your bloodstream after an involuntary blood-test.

I like to read the Supreme Court briefs when things are slow at work, so I'll be sure to follow up with the ruling.

Take it to a jury but they don't give a damn
Because the one who tells the truth is always the policeman

 

[Huaca]

Oregon's high court explores the limits of consent
By Peter Wong
Statesman Journal
12/17/2009

Attorney General John Kroger and Peter Gartlan, the state's chief public defender, met head to head Wednesday about a case that could reshape how police investigate drunken-driving arrests and enforce the law in Oregon.

The arguments by two of the state's top lawyers were heard by the Oregon Supreme Court, which has before it a Sept. 30 decision by a divided Oregon Court of Appeals that would require police to obtain search warrants before they can draw blood samples from some suspected drunken drivers.

The Supreme Court chamber was packed as Kroger — who was making his first appearance before the high court — and Gartlan argued for an hour before the seven justices, who fired questions at both. The court has no formal deadline to issue a decision.

"The identity of the advocates does not have a huge effect on the court," said Kroger, who in his first year as attorney general has made one other appearance, in appellate courts. "But I think this case is important — it potentially affects 25,000 drunken-driving cases per year — and I wanted to argue it myself."

Kroger told the court that about 1,200 of those cases involved blood draws.

This case involves Thomas Gregory Machuca of West Linn, whose blood was drawn after a June 1, 2005, crash in Portland but who failed to persuade a trial judge to suppress evidence of his blood alcohol level. (It was 0.20 percent, above the legal limit of 0.08 percent.) He said it violated his state constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Chief Justice Paul De Muniz asked Kroger whether there was a constitutional right for someone not to give a blood sample against his will.

Kroger said there was, except when a judge issued a search warrant for police to obtain evidence after "probable cause" for a crime — or if there were "exigent circumstances," or the search was conducted as part of the arrest process.

But Kroger said that if police were required to obtain search warrants before drawing blood from drunken-driving suspects, delays could result in samples with blood-alcohol content "declining minute by minute," although Gartlan disagreed.

"Our Constitution often puts government at a significant disadvantage," Justice Michael Gillette said. "That's what it's there for."

Kroger said that a blood draw isn't an unreasonable search.

He said afterward that if the Court of Appeals decision is upheld, "we will have to investigate and prosecute drunken-driving cases very differently."

Oregon and virtually every other state have "implied-consent" laws, under which people who obtain driver's licenses agree to submit to breath, blood and urine tests — refusal of which can cost them to lose their licenses or pay fines. Oregon's law dates to 1965.

Gartlan, who leads the Office of Public Defense Services, said the law amounts to coercion by the Legislature.

"Consent is a personal right," Gartlan told the court. "What the Legislature has attempted to do is to take that right away."

De Muniz and Gillette each asked Gartlan whether the state had the authority to require drivers to undergo such tests as a condition of licensing them to use public highways.

"It's a promise," Gartlan replied.

Gartlan likened the "implied-consent" law to having a box of doughnuts in an interview room at a police station, under a sign that warns suspects that they may eat a doughnut only if they agree to answer questions.

The case at issue stems from the 2005 arrest of Machuca, who crashed his car on Naito Parkway in Portland. The first officer arrived at 1:52 a.m., and Officer Joshua Ladd determined at 2:10 a.m. that there was probable cause for a charge of drunken driving.

Ladd went to Oregon Health & Science University hospital, where Machuca had been taken, and drew Machuca's blood at 3:18 a.m. after reading to him the implied-consent form prepared by the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division.

Machuca was found guilty but only after he had served notice that he would challenge the circuit court's denial of his motion to exclude his blood alcohol level as evidence.

His case was argued twice before the Oregon Court of Appeals, which decided Sept. 30 on a 6-4 vote in Machuca's favor.

Machuca, now 41, faces another charge of drunken driving, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
http://m.statesmanjournal.com/apps/...0091217/NEWS/912170345/-1/WAP&template=wapart