Court wary of warrantless blood tests in DUI cases

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Court wary of warrantless blood tests in DUI cases

AP foreign, Wednesday January 9 2013

MARK SHERMAN

Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appeared reluctant Wednesday to allow police to routinely order blood tests for unwilling drunken-driving suspects without at least trying to obtain a search warrant from a judge.

The court heard arguments Wednesday in a case about a disputed blood test from Missouri, against the backdrop of a serious national problem of more than 10,000 deaths from crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers in 2010, about one every 51 minutes.

That number has dropped by 60 percent in the past 20 years because of a sustained national crackdown on drunken driving. Lawyers for Missouri and the Obama administration argued that dispensing with a warrant requirement would further that effort because any delay in testing a suspect's blood-alcohol content allows alcohol to dissipate in the blood.

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But justices across the ideological spectrum questioned whether the intrusive procedure of sticking a needle in someone's arm to draw blood should routinely be done without the approval of a judge. At the same time, they made clear that they did not want to unduly delay the collection of blood samples.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10603652

[Politicalboi]

1. Why not use these

http://www.amc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123202204

For those with red bars, get a warrant.

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. I heard about this case ...

this morning. It's hard for me to comprehend the state arguing that sticking a needle in someone's arm and drawing blood from them, over their objection, is NOT a violation of one's bodily integrity.

It's more troubling when the record shows that the vast majority of warrants were secured in less than 1/2 hour!

[limpyhobbler]

3. Maybe the police see the trend toward legal marijuana and are looking for some new angles to

arrest people and make money. Once they loose all that money and work from weed arrests, they are going to have to find something else to do to justify their jobs.