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The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the case of Mitchell v. Wisconsin. As this blog discussed previously, this the third case in a series of cases dealing with whether the police can take a DUI/OVI suspect’s blood without a search warrant. The questions and statements from the bench during the oral argument may telegraph how each justice views the issue. However, in our experience, it is difficult to predict the outcome of a case based on the oral arguments.

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The Trilogy of Cases Involving Warrantless Blood Draws
In Missouri v. McNeely, the Court concluded the dissipation of alcohol in blood does not necessarily create an exigent circumstance, meaning a warrant is generally required to obtain a blood sample from a DUI/OVI suspect. They followed that decision with Birchfield v. North Dakota, concluding a warrantless breath test can be administered as a ‘search incident to arrest’, but a blood test still generally requires a warrant.

That brings us to the third piece of the puzzle, Mitchell v. Wisconsin. In that case, the defendant passed out before the police were able to administer a breath test. Relying on Wisconsin’s Implied Consent statute, the police took the defendant to the hospital and had his blood drawn without a warrant. Mitchell was convicted of the DUI charge; and appealed his conviction on the ground the blood draw was an unconstitutional violation of his 4th Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

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Texting is arguably more dangerous than drunk driving. According to a study conducted by Car And Driver, a driver’s reaction time is worse while texting than while intoxicated. With nearly all drivers in possession of a cell phone, it seems likely many more people are driving while texting than driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. For decades, law enforcement has developed methods to detect drunk driving. Officers now need a way to detect texting while driving without violating individuals’ right to privacy. Is the new “Textalyzer” the answer?

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Texting Laws And The Textalyzer
Nearly all states, including Ohio, now have laws prohibiting texting while driving. The state-wide ban in Ohio Revised Code section 4511.204 prohibits operating a motor vehicle ‘while using a handheld electronic communications device to write, send, or read a text-based communication’. Another Ohio law, Revised Code section 4511.991, enhances the sentence of a traffic violation if distracted driving is a contributing factor to the commission of the offense. The problem is not prohibiting the conduct with a law: the problem is enforcing the law which prohibits the conduct. To address the difficulty of enforcing these laws, several states are considering laws which permit the use of a device like the Textalyzer.

The manufacturer of the Textalyzer, Cellebrite, says the device will help law enforcement officers prove whether a driver was using a mobile phone while driving. Officers would plug the device into the driver’s cell phone and scan the phone for recent activity. The device would tell officers when the phone was used for activities such as texting, Facebook messaging, and web browsing. Because the device can reportedly time-stamp the cell phone activity, officers would be able to determine whether the cell phone use was a factor in an accident or traffic violation.

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Brynn Campbell was involved in a head on-crash which killed the 83-year-old woman driving the other car. Campbell was taken to the hospital, and hospital staff performed a urine test. Although Campbell showed no obvious signs of impairment, a police officer went to the hospital and asked the nurse for the urine test results. The results showed Campbell’s alcohol level was well over the limit, according to the Global News. The officer then obtained a search warrant to obtain Campbell’s urine samples and have them tested. Campbell was charged with vehicular homicide. She was acquitted by the trial court, and the prosecution appealed.

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The issue for the appeal was whether the defendant’s rights were violated if the urine test results were introduced as evidence at the trial. The Court of Appeal ruled this was a breach of Campbell’s constitutional rights. The Court commented that the police conduct was serious and stated, “The police intentionally obtained information from hospital staff in breach of medical confidentiality and relied on that information to obtain a warrant that otherwise could not have been issued.” The Court of Appeal upheld Campbell’s acquittal.

What Would Ohio Do?
In Ohio, we have a pair of laws which address the issue of law enforcement officers obtaining alcohol/drug test results from health care providers. Ohio Revised Code section 2317.022 states an officer who wishes to obtain such records can make a written request to the health care facility. Ohio Revised Code section 2317.02 states that, if an officer makes such a request, the health care facility shall supply to requested records. That statute has an exception for situations in which providing the records is specifically prohibited by any Ohio or federal law.

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Anyone who has been charged with an OVI / DUI in Ohio has had the pleasure of listening to an officer read several paragraphs from the back of a form provided by the Ohio BMV. This often droll recitation is required by Ohio’s implied consent law, which says that anyone who operates a vehicle in the state implicitly consents to takes a blood/breath/urine test for drugs and/or alcohol if arrested for OVI. An implied consent law similar to Ohio’s was recently found to be unconstitutional by the Georgia Supreme Court.

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The Georgia Case
That recent case is Elliot v. Georgia. In that case, the Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed the state’s implied consent notice. Georgia’s notice is very similar to Ohio’s in form, with one major difference: Georgia’s includes a sentence stating “Your refusal to submit to the required testing may be offered into evidence against you at trial.” It was this sentence which led to the Georgia Supreme Court evaluating their implied consent law.

As part of their evaluation, the Court reviewed the history of case law in their state, as well as the evolution of their ten (yes, 10) different state constitutions. Based on this review, the Georgia Supreme Court held the provision allowing the prosecution to use an OVI defendant’s test refusal against them in court is unconstitutional. The Court ruled that using a defendant’s refusal as evidence against them violated the right against self-incrimination as provided by the Georgia State Constitution.

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The modern version of the OACDL annual DUI/OVI seminar began in 2002. That means this year we celebrate the 18th birthday of the seminar. I have attended every year, I have participated for many years, and I have been the co-chair for the past few years. Just like parents say about their children, I can’t believe it has been 18 years. Like a proud parent, I think this seminar has matured to be one of the best DUI seminars in the country. This year’s agenda featured too many speakers to name and too many presentations to summarize, but this article covers some of the highlights.

Learning From Non-Lawyers
We reintroduced a tee shirt this year with the slogan, “In God we trust…all others will be cross-examined”. Despite the warning on the throwback tee, we invited many non-lawyer speakers and did not cross examine any of them.

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Joshua Ott (Atlanta) is a former police officer with vast experience and credentials in DUI investigations. He discussed what to look for when reviewing law enforcement videos from cruisers and body cams. His presentation highlighted issues which may arise during all phases of the DUI investigation, including the field sobriety tests.

Dr. Lee Polite (Chicago) is the president of Axion Labs, where he provides chromatography training for scientists from around the world. Dr. Polite taught the basics of gas chromatography, the method used to test blood and urine in Ohio DUI / OVI cases. I attended his three-day gas chromatography course in Chicago, and it was outstanding. Somehow, he did an amazing summary of that material in one hour.

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The credibility of a law enforcement officer makes a difference in court. Judges seem to presume officers are credible. Officers, however, can ruin their credibility with unprofessional conduct, uncorroborated claims, and unconfirmed clues. The trooper in a recent Franklin County case did just that, and it resulted in the court of appeals concluding the trooper’s arrest of the defendant was unlawful.

The case is State v. Simmons. The trooper clocked Simmons driving 57 mph in a 35 mph zone. The trooper did a U-turn, accelerated hard, and approached Simmons rapidly, without activating the cruiser lights or siren. In response, Simmons accelerated. The trooper chased Simmons at speeds exceeding 90 mph in a hilly area, and both crossed the center line or veered into the turn lane several times. The pursuit continued for over 30 seconds before the trooper activated the cruiser lights and siren.

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No problem with Lack Of Convergence (LOC)

Simmons pulled over safely in a school driveway and stopped. The trooper had Simmons sit in the cruiser. The trooper observed that Simmons’ movements and speech were normal, but the trooper questioned Simmons about using alcohol and drugs.   Simmons denied using alcohol but admitted he smoked marijuana a couple days before the incident.

The trooper administered several field sobriety tests. On the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test (involuntary jerking of eyes), which troopers always say is the best because “the eyes don’t lie”, there were no clues. However, the trooper observed Simmons’ eyes didn’t cross on the Lack of Convergence test (failure of eyes to cross).

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The New York Police Department recently demanded that Google remove a function from the Waze app which permits users to report DUI checkpoint locations. In its ‘cease and desist’ letter, the NYPD stated posting checkpoint locations is irresponsible and possibly criminal. The agency insisted that Google take every necessary precaution to ensure GPS data of DUI checkpoints is not posted on Waze, Google Maps, or associated platforms under its control. If the police in New York City can place such demands on Google, then law enforcement in Ohio can do the same. This raises the question: should the government prohibit Waze (and other apps) from reporting DUI / OVI checkpoints in Ohio?

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Waze is a navigation and traffic app which allows drivers to share real-time traffic information. The app was purchased by Google in 2013 (for a mere $966 million). App users can see information from other drivers on their route, such as average speeds, traffic congestion, potholes, accidents, and police presence. Police presence is indicated by an icon of a police officer. The icon does not indicate the nature of the police presence, but users can add notes to the icon, including the presence of a DUI checkpoint. It’s the DUI checkpoint information which is the subject of the strenuous objection by the NYPD.

The NYPD has good intentions. In the letter to Google, the agency states it is “endeavoring to eliminate traffic fatalities”, and “paramount to the success of this initiative is the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) enforcement of the Driving While Impaired (DWI) Laws”. Nobody can argue with that.

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Just as Hollywood has produced some good movies in trilogies, the United States Supreme Court has produced some good case law in trilogies. The Court addressed the right to confront crime lab analysts with the trinity of Bullcoming, Melendez-Diaz and Williams. On the issue of the need for a warrant to draw blood from a DUI suspect, two-thirds of the triad have been completed: McNeely and Birchfield. The triumvirate is about to be consummated with Mitchell v. Wisconsin.

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The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. The general rule is, for a search to be reasonable, there must be a search warrant issued by a judicial officer. There are many exceptions to that general rule. The question addressed by this tripod of cases is this: when is the government permitted to seize a DUI suspect’s bodily substances without a search warrant?

 

McNeely and Birchfield
One search warrant exception was analyzed in the first episode of this case law triumvirate: Missouri v. McNeely. McNeely dealt with the exception for searches based on ‘exigent circumstances’: when there is a compelling need for the search and not enough time to obtain a search warrant. The prosecution claimed DUI cases always involve exigent circumstances because the suspect’s blood alcohol concentration decreases with time. The Court concluded the dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not necessarily create exigent circumstances, so a warrant is generally necessary to obtain a DUI suspect’s blood.

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I thought it was dead. In the jurisdictions where I handle OVI cases, I had not seen the Intoxilyzer 8000 used for years. To my surprise, I recently received discovery materials which showed my client’s breath test was done on an I-8000. Given the challenges faced by this machine when it was first brought to life in Ohio, I thought the State may let it rest in peace.

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The Life And Death Of The Intoxilyzer 8000 In Ohio
In 2009, Ohio spent about $6.5 million to purchase hundreds of Intoxilyzer 8000 machines. The purchase of the machines was controversial, as the State chose to purchase those machines rather than the BAC Datamaster, which was manufactured in Ohio. Adding to the controversy was the fact that the head of the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Testing (Dean Ward) was close friends with the manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer 8000: CMI. In fact, Dean Ward later retired and went to work for CMI.

As the new machines were rolled out in counties across Ohio, defense lawyers challenged their reliability. In the 2011 case of State v. Gerome, several expert witnesses testified for and against the I-8000. The judge ultimately decided the results of the tests on the I-8000 could be used as evidence, but that evidence could be challenged in various ways. In the wake of Gerome, the attacks on the reliability of the I-8000 continued throughout the state.

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In this space, we typically discuss issues related to OVI/DUI law. Today, however, we’re going to take a brief detour and discuss a growing issue: distracted driving. With the near ubiquity of cell phones, instances of fatal car accidents caused by distracted drivers have approached 3,500 nationally in recent years. This year, the State of Ohio passed a new law in an effort to combat this problem.

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The new law is not the first Ohio statute to combat distracted driving. Ohio has had a law against texting while driving on the books since 2012. The Ohio General Assembly now addresses the reality that smart phones present numerous distractions beyond simply texting. Effective October 29, 2018, ORC 4511.991 gives police and prosecutors the ability to enhance the sentence for a traffic offense committed while distracted if the distracting activity is a contributing factor to the commission of the offense. If this enhancement is proven, courts can assess up to an additional $100 in fines on top of any fines levied for the underlying traffic offense. Defendants can then choose to either pay the additional fines or take an online distracted driving safety course.

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