Motor Vehicles – OWI – warrantless blood draws

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Wisconsin Supreme Court

Criminal

Motor Vehicles – OWI – warrantless blood draws

An automobile accident creates an exigent circumstance justifying a warrantless blood draw.

“Viewing the totality of these facts and circumstances, Deputy Hoffman reasonably responded to the accident, secured the scene, investigated the matter, and ultimately was left with a very narrow time frame in which Tullberg’s blood could be drawn so as to produce reliable evidence of intoxication. This sort of ‘now or never’ moment is the epitome of an exigent circumstance. See McNeely, 133 S. Ct. at 1561 (‘The context of blood 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.’) (quoting Roaden v. Kentucky, 413 U.S. 496, 505 (1973)) (quotation marks omitted). However, we do not mean to suggest that a warrantless blood draw would always require a ‘now or never’ situation in order to be justified by exigent circumstances. Rather, exigent circumstances justify a warrantless blood draw if delaying the blood draw would ‘significantly undermin[e] [its] efficacy.’ See id. The ‘now or never’ moment in the present case quite clearly meets that test.”

Affirmed.

2012AP1593-CR State v. Tullberg

Ziegler, J.

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