Birchfield v. North Dakota
136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016)
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Rule of Law:
The Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests as a search incident to a lawful arrest for drunk driving but does not permit warrantless blood tests in the same circumstances. Therefore, a state may criminalize a driver's refusal to submit to a warrantless breath test, but it cannot criminalize the refusal to submit to a warrantless blood test.
Facts:
- Danny Birchfield drove his car into a ditch in North Dakota, exhibited clear signs of intoxication, and failed field sobriety tests.
- After being arrested for drunk driving, Birchfield refused to submit to a warrantless blood test.
- In Minnesota, William Robert Bernard, Jr. was found with a truck stuck in a river after witnesses reported he had been driving it while intoxicated.
- Bernard showed signs of intoxication and admitted to drinking, but refused all field sobriety tests.
- After being arrested for drunk driving, Bernard refused to submit to a warrantless breath test at the police station.
- In North Dakota, Steve Michael Beylund was observed driving erratically, and an officer found him with an empty wine glass and showing signs of intoxication.
- After his arrest, Beylund was taken to a hospital where police informed him it was a crime to refuse a BAC test.
- Under threat of criminal prosecution for refusal, Beylund consented to a blood test, which revealed a BAC of 0.250%.
Procedural Posture:
- In North Dakota, Danny Birchfield was convicted in state district court for refusing a blood test; the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed his conviction.
- In Minnesota, William Bernard was charged with refusing a breath test; the state trial court dismissed the charges, but the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed, and the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the reversal.
- In North Dakota, Steve Beylund's driver's license was suspended in an administrative proceeding after he consented to a blood test; a state district court and the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the suspension.
- The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to Birchfield, Bernard, and Beylund and consolidated their cases for review.
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Issue:
Does the Fourth Amendment permit states to criminalize a motorist's refusal to submit to a warrantless test measuring their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) after a lawful arrest for drunk driving?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Alito
Yes, for breath tests; No, for blood tests. The Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to a lawful drunk-driving arrest but not warrantless blood tests, meaning a state can criminalize refusal of the former but not the latter. The Court applied the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine and the balancing test from Riley v. California, weighing individual privacy against legitimate government interests. The Court found that a breath test is a negligible intrusion on privacy, as it involves minimal physical intrusion, reveals only a BAC reading, and is not inherently embarrassing. In contrast, a blood test is a significant bodily intrusion that requires piercing the skin, extracts a part of the subject's body, and provides the state with a physical sample that could be preserved and analyzed for other information. Because the government's compelling interest in combating drunk driving is amply served by the far less intrusive breath test, the Fourth Amendment does not permit a warrantless blood test as a search incident to arrest. Consequently, motorists cannot be deemed to have given implied consent to an unconstitutional search (a warrantless blood test) on pain of criminal penalty.
Dissenting - Justice Sotomayor
No. The Fourth Amendment prohibits such warrantless searches for both breath and blood tests unless exigent circumstances exist in a particular case. The majority is correct that warrantless blood tests are unconstitutional, but it is wrong to create a categorical exception for breath tests under the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine. The justifications for that doctrine—officer safety and preventing the active destruction of evidence—do not apply to collecting a breath sample for a DUI, which occurs well after the arrest. The correct framework is the case-by-case exigent circumstances analysis from Missouri v. McNeely. Because the process of administering an evidentiary breath test involves inherent delays for transport and observation, police generally have ample time to obtain a warrant, making a categorical exception unnecessary and unreasonable.
Dissenting - Justice Thomas
Yes. Both warrantless breath and blood tests are constitutional under the exigent-circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. The majority's distinction between breath and blood tests creates an arbitrary and confusing line. The correct approach, as argued in the McNeely dissent, is a per se rule recognizing that the natural metabolization of alcohol in the bloodstream always creates an exigency. Once police have probable cause to believe a driver is drunk, the ongoing destruction of BAC evidence justifies a warrantless search, whether by breath or blood, in every case.
Analysis:
This decision establishes a significant, bright-line rule in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence concerning drunk-driving investigations. By distinguishing between breath and blood tests for the search-incident-to-arrest exception, the Court created a categorical rule that departs from the case-by-case exigency analysis of Missouri v. McNeely. The ruling provides clear guidance to law enforcement that breath tests are permissible without a warrant post-arrest, while blood tests require a warrant, consent, or a showing of specific exigent circumstances. The decision also limits the scope of implied consent laws, clarifying that states cannot use the threat of criminal penalties to compel submission to an otherwise unconstitutional search.
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