Is a search warrant required for the most intrusive of searches? The Minnesota Supreme Court is trying to decide where to draw the line.
The case involves a 48-year-old Burnsville, Minn., woman who crashed head-on into another car and injured the other driver in May 2006. Attorneys made their arguments before the state supreme court on Wednesday.
No one is disputing that Janet Sue Shriner, who had four previous DWIs, was drunk that evening. After the crash, she drove the wrong way into traffic, then along a sidewalk and across a busy intersection against the light. When an officer stopped her, she had bloodshot eyes, smelled of alcohol and couldn’t stand up.
The officer had her blood tested, without her consent, at a nearby hospital. Charges against her included first-degree drunken driving, criminal vehicular operation and leaving the scene of an accident.
But a Dakota County judge agreed with Shriner’s attorney that the officer should have tried to get a search warrant before testing her blood. The judge threw out the evidence and dismissed the drunken-driving and criminal vehicular operation charges. The state court of appeals upheld that ruling.
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