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Judiciary Committee reviews warrant, refusal language for evidentiary blood draws; vote scheduled
Summary
Committee counsel and practitioners discussed proposed changes to DUI-related statutes that clarify when officers may obtain a warrant for an evidentiary blood draw, create a new refusal subsection tied to warrants, and include a provision preventing simultaneous charges for refusal and DUI. Committee planned a vote the following day.
Ben Novogrovsky, counsel in the Office of Legislative Council, presented proposed amendments to DUI-related statutes at the Judiciary Committee meeting Feb. 6.
Novogrovsky said the draft adds a new subsection intended to address when a person may be charged for refusing an evidentiary blood draw after a warrant is obtained. He read the new draft language: “a person suspected of violating the section shall not rather than hinder refuse to submit to the collection of an evidentiary blood sample when a warrant for the person's blood is issued pursuant to subdivision f 1 of the title,” and added the subsection “is not construed to impair the person's right to challenge the validity of the search warrant itself.”
The change follows a separate edit labeled “4 j” intended to prevent a person from being charged both for refusal and for DUI at the same time. Novogrovsky said that draft 2.1 is the clean version the committee would vote on.
Dennis Wigmans, identified as “state attorneys and sheriff's department” in the transcript, described the practical sequence that informed the drafting. “To pinpoint it where we are in the processing here is, you are in a circumstance where… either, a, right, the equipment's not available, or, b, it's a… DUI drug case. Right? And so we're going to get blood. A warrant has been issued by a… judge,” Wigmans said. He distinguished those situations from routine ethanol cases in which breath-testing equipment is available and a warrant would not typically be sought.
Marshall Paul of the Office of the Defender General spoke about how adjudication language affects Department of Motor Vehicles reporting. Paul recommended that the statute require reporting of a “merits adjudication order issued pursuant to subdivision 5229 of this title” rather than language that reports only a grant of youthful-offender status, because the latter “wouldn't have anything to do with their DMV status.”
Committee members and counsel discussed the interplay between implied-consent principles, the availability of breath-testing equipment, and the warrant process for blood draws. Novogrovsky and practitioners repeatedly emphasized that the proposed subsection is tied to an issued warrant and preserves a suspect's right to challenge that warrant in court.
No formal vote on the bill occurred during the session. Novogrovsky said the committee would take up the clean draft for a vote the following day, either after the floor session or after lunch.
