Legal Commentary

DUI Enforcement Ramps It Up a Notch

By Jeralyn

This weekend cops in Colorado (and I'm sure elsewhere) resume their 100 day "The Heat is On" campaign to bust drunk drivers.

One police chief outside of Vail has a new plan. He wants to force those stopped to take a blood test. What about our law that says you can choose between breath and blood or choose to refuse (and lose your license) unless there's an accident with serious injuries? He doesn't care. He says his officers will get a search warrant for your blood.

The courts will probably shoot him down. [More...]

As one local lawyer says:

The Colorado legislature... took away the choice to refuse a test in drunken-driving crashes that leave someone badly injured or dead. But legislators didn't impose the same requirement on DUI arrests that don't involve serious crashes.

"There's no constitutional issue here," he said. "But since the legislature has created a structure for certain sanctions to be imposed if you refuse a blood or breath test, it's obvious you have a right to refuse unless there's serious bodily injury or death."

What does the Eagle County DA say?

"Granted," [Mark] Hurlburt said, "expressed consent doesn't specifically spell out that we can get a warrant, but it also doesn't spell out that we can't."

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 25, 2009 (boomark / email).