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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 11–1425
_________________
MISSOURI, PETITIONER
v. TYLER G.
McNEELY
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
missouri
[April 17, 2013]
Justice Sotomayor announced the judgment of
the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to
Parts I, II–A, II–B, and IV, and an opinion with
respect to Parts II–C and III, in which Justice Scalia,
Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Kagan join.
In
Schmerber v.
California,
384 U.S.
757 (1966), this Court upheld a warrantless blood test of an
individual arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol
because the officer “might reasonably have believed that he
was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to
obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, threatened the
destruction of evidence.”
Id., at 770 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The question presented here is 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. We conclude that it does
not, and we hold, consistent with general Fourth Amendment
principles, that exigency in this context must be determined case
by case based on the totality of the circumstances.
I
While on highway patrol at approximately 2:08
a.m., a Missouri police officer stopped Tyler McNeely’s truck
after observing it exceed the posted speed limit and repeatedly
cross the centerline. 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, App. 20, and he appeared unsteady on his
feet when he exited the truck. After McNeely performed poorly on a
battery of field-sobriety 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 voluntar- ily 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. See Mo. Ann. Stat. §§577.020.1,
577.041 (West 2011). 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, which was
well above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. See
§577.012.1.
McNeely was charged with driving while
intoxicated (DWI), in violation of §577.010.[
1] He moved to suppress the results of the
blood test, arguing in relevant part that, under the circumstances,
taking his blood for chemi- cal testing without first obtaining a
search warrant vio- lated his rights under the Fourth Amendment.
The trial court agreed. It concluded that the exigency exception to
the warrant requirement did not apply because, apart from the fact
that “[a]s in all cases involving intoxication,
[McNeely’s] blood alcohol was being metabolized by his
liver,” there were no circumstances suggesting the officer
faced an emergency in which he could not practicably obtain a
warrant. No. 10CG–CR01849–01 (Cir. Ct. Cape
Giradeau Cty., Mo., Div. II, Mar. 3, 2011), App. to Pet. for Cert.
43a. On appeal, the Missouri Court of Appeals stated an intention
to reverse but transferred the case directly to the Missouri
Supreme Court. No. ED 96402 (June 21, 2011),
id., at
24a.
The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed. 358 S.W.3d
65 (2012) (
per curiam). Recognizing that this Court’s
decision in
Schmerber v.
California,
384 U.S.
757, “provide[d] the backdrop” to its analysis, the
Missouri Supreme Court held that “
Schmerber directs
lower courts to engage in a totality of the circumstances analysis
when determin- ing whether exigency permits a nonconsensual,
warrantless blood draw.” 358 S. W. 3d, at 69, 74. The
court further concluded that
Schmerber “requires more
than the mere dissipation of blood-alcohol evidence to support a
warrantless blood draw in an alcohol-related case.” 358
S. W. 3d, at 70
. According to the court, exigency
depends heavily on the existence of additional
“ ‘special facts,’ ” such as
whether an officer was delayed by the need to investigate an ac-
cident and transport an injured suspect to the hospital, as had
been the case in
Schmerber. 358 S. W. 3d
, at 70,
74. Finding that this was “unquestionably a routine DWI
case” in which no factors other than the natural dissi-
pation of blood-alcohol suggested that there was an emergency, the
court held that the nonconsensual warrantless blood draw violated
McNeely’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable
searches of his person.
Id., at 74–75.
We granted certiorari to resolve a split of
authority on the question whether the 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.[
2] See 567 U. S. ___ (2012). We now affirm.
II
A
The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part
that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause.” Our cases have held that a
warrantless search of the person is reasonable only if it falls
within a recognized exception. See,
e.g., United States v.
Robinson,
414
U.S. 218, 224 (1973). That principle applies to the type of
search at issue in this case, which involved a compelled physical
intrusion beneath McNeely’s skin and into his veins to obtain
a sample of his blood for use as evidence in a criminal
investigation. Such an invasion of bodily integrity implicates an
individual’s “most personal and deep-rooted
expectations of privacy.”
Winston v.
Lee,
470 U.S.
753, 760 (1985); see also
Skinner v.
Railway Labor
Executives’ Assn.,
489 U.S.
602, 616 (1989).
We first considered the Fourth Amendment
restrictions on such searches in
Schmerber, where, as in
this case, a blood sample was drawn from a defendant suspected of
driving while under the influence of alcohol. 384 U. S., at
758. Noting that “[s]earch warrants are ordinarily required
for searches of dwellings,” we reasoned that “absent an
emergency, no less could be required where intrusions into the
human body are concerned,” even when the search was conducted
following a lawful arrest.
Id., at 770. We explained that
the importance of requiring authorization by a
“ ‘neutral and detached
magistrate’ ” before allowing a law enforcement
officer to “invade another’s body in search of evidence
of guilt is indisputable and great.”
Ibid. (quoting
Johnson v.
United States,
333 U.S.
10, 13–14 (1948)).
As noted, the warrant requirement is subject to
ex- ceptions. “One well-recognized exception,” and the
one at issue in this case, “applies 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.”
Kentucky v.
King, 563 U. S.
___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks and
brackets omitted). A variety of circumstances may give rise to an
exigency sufficient to justify a warrantless search, including law
enforcement’s need to provide emergency assistance to an
occupant of a home,
Michigan v.
Fisher,
558 U.S.
45, 47–48 (2009) (
per curiam), engage in
“hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect,
United
States v.
San-
tana,
427 U.S.
38, 42–43 (1976), or enter a burning building to put out
a fire and investigate its cause,
Michigan v.
Tyler,
436 U.S.
499, 509–510 (1978). As is relevant here, we have also
recognized that in some circumstances law enforcement officers may
conduct a search without a warrant to prevent the imminent
destruction of evidence. See
Cupp v.
Murphy,
412 U.S.
291, 296 (1973);
Ker v.
California,
374 U.S.
23, 40–41 (1963) (plurality opinion). While these
contexts do not necessarily involve equiva- lent dangers, in each a
warrantless search is potentially reasonable because “there
is compelling need for official action and no time to secure a
warrant.”
Tyler, 436 U. S., at 509.
To determine whether a law enforcement officer
faced an emergency that justified acting without a warrant, this
Court looks to the totality of circumstances. See
Brigham
City v.
Stuart,
547 U.S.
398, 406 (2006) (finding officers’ entry into a home to
provide emergency assistance “plainly reasonable under the
circumstances”);
Illinois v.
Mc-
Arthur,
531 U.S.
326, 331 (2001) (concluding that a warrantless seizure of a
person to prevent him from returning to his trailer to destroy
hidden contraband was reasonable “[i]n the circumstances of
the case before us” due to exigency);
Cupp, 412
U. S., at 296 (holding that a limited warrantless search of a
suspect’s fingernails to preserve evidence that the suspect
was trying to rub off was justified “[o]n the facts of this
case”); see also
Richards v.
Wisconsin,
520 U.S.
385, 391–396 (1997) (rejecting a
per se
exception to the knock-and-announce requirement for felony drug
investigations based on presumed exigency, and requiring instead
evaluation of police conduct “in a particular case”).
We apply this “finely tuned approach” to Fourth
Amendment reasonableness in this context be- cause the police
action at issue lacks “the traditional justification that
. . . a warrant . . . provides.”
Atwater v.
Lago Vista,
532 U.S.
318, 347, n. 16 (2001). Absent that established justification,
“the fact-specific nature of the reasonableness
inquiry,”
Ohio v.
Robinette,
519 U.S.
33, 39 (1996), demands that we evaluate each case of alleged
exigency based “on its own facts and circumstances.”
Go-Bart Importing Co. v.
United States,
282 U.S.
344, 357 (1931).[
3]
Our decision in
Schmerber applied this
totality of the circumstances approach. In that case, the
petitioner had suffered injuries in an automobile accident and was
taken to the hospital. 384 U. S., at 758. While he was there
receiving treatment, a police officer arrested the petitioner for
driving while under the influence of alcohol and ordered a blood
test over his objection.
Id., at 758–759. After
explaining that the warrant requirement applied generally to
searches that intrude into the human body, we concluded that the
warrantless blood test “in the present case” was
nonetheless permissible because the officer “might reasonably
have believed that he was confronted with an emergency, in which
the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances,
threatened ‘the destruction of evidence.’ ”
Id., at 770 (quoting
Preston v.
United States,
376 U.S.
364, 367 (1964)).
In support of that conclusion, we observed that
evidence could have been lost because “the percentage of
alcohol in the blood begins to diminish shortly after drinking
stops, as the body functions to eliminate it from the
system.” 384 U. S., at 770. We added that
“[p]articularly in a case such as this, where time had to be
taken to bring the accused to a hospital and to investigate the
scene of the accident, there was no time to seek out a magistrate
and secure a warrant.”
Id., at 770–771.
“Given these special facts,” we found that it was
appropriate for the police to act without a warrant.
Id., at
771. We further held that the blood test at issue was a reasonable
way to recover the evidence because it was highly effective,
“involve[d] vir- tually no risk, trauma, or pain,” and
was conducted in a reasonable fashion “by a physician in a
hospital environment according to accepted medical
practices.”
Ibid. And in conclusion, we noted that our
judgment that there had been no Fourth Amendment violation was
strictly based “on the facts of the present record.”
Id., at 772.
Thus, our analysis in
Schmerber fits
comfortably within our case law applying the exigent circumstances
exception. In finding the warrantless blood test reasonable in
Schmerber, we considered all of the facts and circumstances
of the particular case and carefully based our holding on those
specific facts.
B
The State properly recognizes that the
reasonableness of a warrantless search under the exigency exception
to the warrant requirement must be evaluated based on the totality
of the circumstances. Brief for Petitioner 28–29. But the
State nevertheless seeks a
per se rule for blood
testing in drunk-driving cases. The State contends that whenever an
officer has probable cause to believe an individual has been
driving under the influence of alcohol, exigent circumstances will
necessarily exist because BAC evidence is inherently evanescent. As
a result, the State claims that so long as the officer has probable
cause and the blood test is conducted in a reasonable manner, it is
categorically reasonable for law enforcement to obtain the blood
sample without a warrant.
It is true that as a result of the human
body’s natural metabolic processes, the alcohol level in a
person’s blood begins to dissipate once the alcohol is fully
absorbed and continues to decline until the alcohol is eliminated.
See
Skinner, 489 U. S., at 623;
Schmerber, 384
U. S., at 770–771. Testimony before the trial court in
this case indicated that the percentage of alcohol in an
individual’s blood typically decreases by approximately 0.015
percent to 0.02 percent per hour once the alcohol has been fully
absorbed. App. 47. More precise calculations of the rate at which
alcohol dissipates depend on various individual characteristics
(such as weight, gender, and alcohol tolerance) and the
circumstances in which the alcohol was consumed. See Stripp,
Forensic and Clinical Issues in Alcohol Analysis, in Forensic
Chemistry Handbook 437–441 (L. Kobilinsky ed. 2012).
Regardless of the exact elimination rate, it is sufficient for our
purposes to note that because an individual’s alcohol level
gradually declines soon after he stops drinking, a significant
delay in testing will negatively affect the probative value of the
results. This fact was essential to our holding in
Schmerber, as we recognized that, under the circumstances,
further delay in order to secure a warrant after the time spent
investigating the scene of the accident and transporting the
injured suspect to the hospital to receive treatment would have
threatened the destruction of evidence. 384 U. S., at
770–771.
But it does not follow that we should depart
from careful case-by-case assessment of exigency and adopt the
categorical rule proposed by the State and its
amici. In
those drunk-driving investigations where police officers can
reasonably obtain a warrant before a blood sample can be drawn
without significantly undermining the efficacy of the search, the
Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so. See
McDonald v.
United States,
335 U.S.
451, 456 (1948) (“We cannot . . . excuse the
absence of a search warrant without a showing by those who seek
exemption from the constitutional mandate that the exigencies of
the situation made [the search] imperative”). We do not doubt
that some circumstances will make obtaining a warrant impractical
such that the dissipation of alcohol from the bloodstream will
support an exigency justifying a properly conducted warrantless
blood test. That, however, is a reason to decide each case on its
facts, as we did in
Schmerber, not to accept the
“considerable overgeneralization” that a
per se rule would reflect.
Richards, 520
U. S., at 393.
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.
Roaden v.
Kentucky,
413 U.S.
496, 505 (1973). In contrast to, for example, circumstances in
which the suspect has control over easily disposable evidence, see
Georgia v.
Randolph,
547 U.S.
103, 116, n. 6 (2006);
Cupp, 412 U. S., at
296, BAC evidence from a drunk-driving suspect naturally dissipates
over time in a gradual and relatively predictable manner. Moreover,
because a police officer must typically transport a drunk-driving
suspect to a medical facility and obtain the assistance of someone
with appropriate medical training before conducting a blood test,
some delay between the time of the arrest or accident and the time
of the test is inevitable regardless of whether police officers are
required to obtain a warrant. See
State v.
Shriner,
751 N.W.2d 538, 554 (Minn. 2008) (Meyer, J., dissenting). This
reality undermines the force of the State’s contention,
endorsed by the dissent, see
post, at 3 (opinion of Thomas,
J.), that we should recognize a categorical exception to the
warrant requirement because BAC evidence “is actively being
destroyed with every minute that passes.” Brief for
Petitioner 27. Consider, for example, a situation in which the
warrant process will not significantly increase the delay before
the blood test is conducted because an officer can take steps to
secure a warrant while the suspect is being transported to a
medical facility by another officer. In such a circumstance, there
would be no plausible justification for an exception to the warrant
requirement.
The State’s proposed
per se
rule also fails to account for advances in the 47 years since
Schmerber was decided that allow for the more expeditious
processing of warrant applications, particularly in contexts like
drunk-driving investigations where the evidence offered to
establish probable cause is simple. The Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure were amended in 1977 to permit federal magistrate judges
to issue a warrant based on sworn testimony communicated by
telephone. See 91Stat. 319. As amended, the law now allows a
federal magistrate judge to con- sider “information
communicated by telephone or other reliable electronic
means.” Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 4.1. States have also
innovated. Well over a majority of States allow police officers or
prosecutors to apply for search warrants remotely through various
means, including telephonic or radio communication, electronic
communication such as e-mail, and video conferencing.[
4] And in addition to technology-based
developments, jurisdictions have found other ways to streamline the
warrant process, such as by using standard-form warrant
applications for drunk-driving investigations.[
5]
We by no means claim that telecommunications
inno- vations have, will, or should eliminate all delay from the
warrant-application process. Warrants inevitably take some time for
police officers or prosecutors to complete and for magistrate
judges to review. Telephonic and electronic warrants may still
require officers to follow time-consuming formalities designed to
create an adequate record, such as preparing a duplicate warrant
before calling the magistrate judge. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc.
4.1(b)(3). And improvements in communications technology do not
guarantee that a magistrate judge will be available when an officer
needs a warrant after making a late-night arrest. But technological
developments that enable police officers to secure warrants more
quickly, and do so without undermining the neutral magistrate
judge’s essential role as a check on police discretion, are
relevant to an assessment of exigency. That is particularly so in
this context, where BAC evidence is lost gradually and relatively
predictably.[
6]
Of course, there are important countervailing
concerns. While experts can work backwards from the BAC at the time
the sample was taken to determine the BAC at the time of the
alleged offense, longer intervals may raise questions about the
accuracy of the calculation. For that reason, exigent circumstances
justifying a warrantless blood sample may arise in the regular
course of law enforcement due to delays from the warrant
application process. But adopting the State’s
per se approach would improperly ignore the current and
future technological developments in warrant procedures, and might
well diminish the incentive for jurisdictions “to pursue
progressive approaches to warrant acquisition that preserve the
protections afforded by the warrant while meeting the legitimate
interests of law enforcement.”
State v.
Rodriguez, 2007 UT 15, ¶46, 156 P.3d 771, 779.
In short, while the natural dissipation of
alcohol in the blood may support a finding of exigency in a
specific case, as it did in
Schmerber, it does not do so
categorically. Whether a warrantless blood test of a drunk-driving
suspect is reasonable must be determined case by case based on the
totality of the circumstances.
C
In an opinion concurring in part and
dissenting in part, The Chief Justice agrees that the State’s
proposed
per se rule is overbroad because “[f]or
exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless search
. . . there must . . . be ‘no time to
secure a warrant.’ ”
Post, at 6 (quoting
Tyler, 436 U. S., at 509). But The Chief Justice then
goes on to suggest his own categorical rule under which a
warrantless blood draw is permissible if the officer could not
secure a warrant (or reasonably believed he could not secure a
warrant) in the time it takes to transport the suspect to a
hospital or similar facility and obtain medical assistance.
Post, at 8–9. Although we agree that delay inherent to
the blood-testing process is relevant to evaluating exigency, see
supra, at 10, we decline to substitute The Chief
Justice’s modified
per se rule for our
traditional totality of the circumstances analysis.
For one thing, making exigency completely
dependent on the window of time between an arrest and a blood test
produces odd consequences. Under The Chief Justice’s rule, if
a police officer serendipitously stops a suspect near an emergency
room, the officer may conduct a noncon- sensual warrantless blood
draw even if all agree that a warrant could be obtained with very
little delay under the circumstances (perhaps with far less delay
than an average ride to the hospital in the jurisdiction). The rule
would also distort law enforcement incentives. As with the
State’s
per se rule, The Chief Justice’s
rule might discourage efforts to expedite the warrant process
because it categorically authorizes warrantless blood draws so long
as it takes more time to secure a warrant than to obtain medical
assistance. On the flip side, making the requirement of independent
judicial oversight turn exclusively on the amount of time that
elapses between an arrest and BAC testing could induce police
departments and individual officers to minimize testing delay to
the detriment of other values. The Chief Justice correctly observes
that “[t]his case involves medical personnel drawing blood at
a medical facility, not police officers doing so by the side of the
road.”
Post, at 6–7, n. 2. But The Chief
Justice does not say that roadside blood draws are necessarily un-
reasonable, and if we accepted The Chief Justice’s approach,
they would become a more attractive option for the police.
III
The remaining arguments advanced in support of
a
per se exigency rule are unpersuasive.
The State and several of its
amici,
including the United States, express concern that a case-by-case
approach to exigency will not provide adequate guidance to law
enforcement officers deciding whether to conduct a blood test of a
drunk-driving suspect without a warrant. The Chief Justice and the
dissent also raise this concern. See
post, at 1, 9–10
(opinion of Roberts, C. J.);
post, at 5–7
(opinion of Thomas, J.). While the desire for a bright-line rule is
understandable, the Fourth Amendment will not tolerate adoption of
an overly broad categorical approach that would dilute the warrant
requirement in a context where significant privacy interests are at
stake. Moreover, a case-by-case approach is hardly unique within
our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Numerous police actions are
judged based on fact-intensive, totality of the circumstances
analyses rather than according to categorical rules, including in
situations that are more likely to require police officers to make
difficult split-second judgments. See,
e.g., Illinois v.
Wardlow,
528 U.S.
119, 123–125 (2000) (whether an officer has reasonable
suspicion to make an investigative stop and to pat down a suspect
for weapons under
Terry v.
Ohio,
392 U.S. 1
(1968));
Robinette, 519 U. S., at 39–40 (whether
valid consent has been given to search);
Tennessee v.
Garner,
471 U.S.
1, 8–9, 20 (1985) (whether force used to effectuate a
seizure, including deadly force, is reasonable). As in those
contexts, we see no valid substitute for careful case-by-case
evaluation of reasonableness here.[
7]
Next, the State and the United States contend
that the privacy interest implicated by blood draws of
drunk-driving suspects is relatively minimal. That is so, they
claim, both because motorists have a diminished expectation of
privacy and because our cases have repeatedly indicated that blood
testing is commonplace in society and typically involves
“virtually no risk, trauma, or pain.”
Schmerber,
384 U. S., at 771. See also
post, at 3, and n. 1
(opinion of Thomas, J.).
But the fact that people are “accorded
less privacy in . . . automobiles because of th[e]
compelling governmental need for regulation,”
California v.
Carney,
471 U.S.
386, 392 (1985), does not diminish a motorist’s privacy
interest in preventing an agent of the government from piercing his
skin. As to the nature of a blood test conducted in a medical
setting by trained personnel, it is concededly less intrusive than
other bodily invasions we have found unreasonable. See
Winston, 470 U. S., at 759–766 (surgery to remove
a bullet);
Rochin v.
California,
342 U.S.
165, 172–174 (1952) (induced vomiting to extract
narcotics capsules ingested by a suspect violated the Due Process
Clause). For that reason, we have held that medically drawn blood
tests are reasonable in appropriate circumstances. See
Skinner, 489 U. S., at 618–633 (upholding
warrantless blood testing of railroad employees involved in certain
train accidents under the “special needs” doctrine);
Schmerber, 384 U. S., at 770–772. We have never
retreated, however, from our recognition that any compelled
intrusion into the human body implicates significant,
constitutionally protected privacy interests.
Finally, the State and its
amici point to
the compelling governmental interest in combating drunk driving and
contend that prompt BAC testing, including through blood testing,
is vital to pursuit of that interest. They argue that is
particularly so because, in addition to laws that make it illegal
to operate a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, all 50
States and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that make it
per se unlawful to operate a motor vehicle with a BAC
of over 0.08 percent. See National Highway Traffic Safety Admin.
(NHTSA), Al- cohol and Highway Safety: A Review of the State of
Knowledge 167 (No. 811374, Mar. 2011) (NHTSA Review).[
8] To enforce these provisions, they
reasonably assert, accurate BAC evidence is critical. See also
post, at 4–5 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.);
post, at 4–5 (opinion of Thomas, J.).
“No one can seriously dispute the
magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the States’
interest in eradicating it.”
Michigan Dept. of State
Police v.
Sitz,
496 U.S.
444, 451 (1990). Certainly we do not. While some progress has
been made, drunk driving continues to exact a terrible toll on our
society. See NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts, 2011 Data 1 (No. 811700,
Dec. 2012) (reporting that 9,878 people were killed in
alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2011, an average of one
fatality every 53 minutes).
But the general importance of the
government’s interest in this area does not justify departing
from the warrant requirement without showing exigent circumstances
that make securing a warrant impractical in a particular case. To
the extent that the State and its
amici contend that
applying the traditional Fourth Amendment
totality-of-the-circumstances analysis to determine whether an
exigency justified a warrantless search will undermine the
governmental interest in preventing and prosecuting drunk-driving
offenses, we are not convinced.
As an initial matter, States have a broad range
of legal tools to enforce their drunk-driving laws and to secure
BAC evidence without undertaking warrantless nonconsensual blood
draws. For example, all 50 States have adopted implied consent laws
that require motorists, as a condition of operating a motor vehicle
within the State, to consent to BAC testing if they are arrested or
otherwise detained on suspicion of a drunk-driving offense. See
NHTSA Review 173;
supra, at 2 (describing Missouri’s
implied consent law). Such laws impose significant consequences
when a motorist withdraws consent; typically the motorist’s
driver’s license is immediately suspended or revoked, and
most States allow the motorist’s refusal to take a BAC test
to be used as evidence against him in a subsequent criminal
prosecution. See NHTSA Review 173–175; see also
South
Dakota v.
Neville,
459 U.S.
553, 554, 563–564 (1983) (holding that the use of such an
adverse inference does not violate the Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination).
It is also notable that a majority of States
either place significant restrictions on when police officers may
obtain a blood sample despite a suspect’s refusal (often
limiting testing to cases involving an accident resulting in death
or serious bodily injury) or prohibit nonconsensual blood tests
altogether.[
9] Among these
States, several lift restrictions on nonconsensual blood testing if
law enforcement officers first obtain a search warrant or similar
court order.[
10] Cf.
Bullcoming v.
New Mexico, 564 U. S. ___, ___
(2011) (slip op., at 3) (noting that the blood test was obtained
pursuant to a warrant after the petitioner refused a breath test).
We are aware of no evidence indicating that restrictions on
nonconsensual blood testing have compromised drunk-driving
enforcement efforts in the States that have them. And in fact,
field studies in States that permit nonconsensual blood testing
pursuant to a warrant have suggested that, although warrants do
impose administrative burdens, their use can reduce
breath-test-refusal rates and improve law enforcement’s
ability to recover BAC evidence. See NHTSA, Use of Warrants for
Breath Test Refusal: Case Studies 36–38 (No. 810852, Oct.
2007).
To be sure, “States [may] choos[e] to
protect privacy beyond the level that the Fourth Amendment
requires.”
Virginia v.
Moore,
553 U.S.
164, 171 (2008). But wide-spread state restrictions on
nonconsensual blood testing provide further support for our
recognition that compelled blood draws implicate a significant
privacy interest. They also strongly suggest that our ruling today
will not “severely hamper effective law enforcement.”
Garner, 471 U. S., at 19.
IV
The State argued before this Court that the
fact that alcohol is naturally metabolized by the human body
creates an exigent circumstance in every case. The State did not
argue that there were exigent circumstances in this particular case
because a warrant could not have been obtained within a reasonable
amount of time. In his testimony before the trial court, the
arresting officer did not identify any other factors that would
suggest he faced an emergency or unusual delay in securing a
warrant. App. 40. He testified that he made no effort to obtain a
search warrant before conducting the blood draw even though he was
“sure” a prosecuting attorney was on call and even
though he had no reason to believe that a magistrate judge would
have been unavailable.
Id., at 39, 41–42. The officer
also acknowledged that he had obtained search warrants before
taking blood samples in the past without difficulty.
Id., at
42. He explained that he elected to forgo a warrant application in
this case only because he believed it was not legally necessary to
obtain a warrant.
Id., at 39–40. Based on this
testimony, the trial court concluded that there was no exigency and
specifically found that, although the arrest took place in the
middle of the night, “a prosecutor was readily available to
apply for a search warrant and a judge was readily available to
issue a warrant.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 43a.[
11]
The Missouri Supreme Court in turn affirmed that
judgment, holding first that the dissipation of alcohol did not
establish a
per se exigency, and second that the State
could not otherwise satisfy its burden of establishing exigent
circumstances. 358 S. W. 3d, at 70, 74–75. In
petitioning for certiorari to this Court, the State challenged only
the first holding; it did not separately contend that the
warrantless blood test was reasonable regardless of whether the
natural dissipation of alcohol in a suspect’s blood
categorically justifies dispensing with the warrant requirement.
See Pet. for Cert. i.
Here and in its own courts the State based its
case on an insistence that a driver who declines to submit to
testing after being arrested for driving under the influence of
alcohol is always subject to a nonconsensual blood test without any
precondition for a warrant. That is incorrect.
Although the Missouri Supreme Court referred to
this case as “unquestionably a routine DWI case,” 358
S. W. 3d
, at 74, the fact that a particular
drunk-driving stop is “routine” in the sense that it
does not involve “ ‘special
facts,’ ”
ibid., such as the need for the
police to attend to a car accident, does not mean a warrant is
required. Other factors present in an ordinary traffic stop, such
as the procedures in place for obtaining a warrant or the avail-
ability of a magistrate judge, may affect whether the police can
obtain a warrant in an expeditious way and therefore may establish
an exigency that permits a warrantless search. The relevant factors
in determining whether a warrantless search is reasonable,
including the practical problems of obtaining a warrant within a
timeframe that still preserves the opportunity to obtain reliable
evidence, will no doubt vary depending upon the circumstances in
the case.
Because this case was argued on the broad
proposition that drunk-driving cases present a
per se
exigency, the arguments and the record do not provide the Court
with an adequate analytic framework for a detailed discussion of
all the relevant factors that can be taken into account in
determining the reasonableness of acting without a warrant. It
suffices to say that the metabolization of alcohol in the
bloodstream and the ensuing loss of evidence are among the factors
that must be considered in deciding whether a warrant is required.
No doubt, given the large number of arrests for this offense in
different jurisdictions nationwide, cases will arise when
anticipated delays in obtaining a warrant will justify a blood test
without judicial authorization, for in every case the law must be
concerned that evidence is being destroyed. But that inquiry ought
not to be pursued here where the question is not properly before
this Court. Having rejected the sole argument presented to us
challenging the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision, we affirm
its judgment.
* * *
We hold that in drunk-driving investigations,
the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not con-
stitute an exigency in every case sufficient to justify conducting
a blood test without a warrant.
The judgment of the Missouri Supreme Court is
affirmed.
It is so ordered.