Minnesota’s test refusal law (Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, Subd. 2) makes it a crime for someone to refuse to submit a blood, breath, or urine test when an officer has probable cause that the person was driving while impaired. A driver charged with test refusal recently challenged the constitutionality of the law and the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled this week in State v. Bernard that the Minnesota test refusal law is constitutional. In a 5 to 2 decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a driver cannot object to a “search” of their breath because the police have a right to search the person “incident to arrest.”
The 4th Amendment to the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions protect against unreasonable searches and seizures by the state. Generally speaking, a search of one’s blood, breath, or urine requires a search warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement, such as consent or an emergency situation where obtaining a warrant is impractical.
In the Bernard decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court relied on an exception to the warrant requirement – search incident to arrest – to authorize the search. A search incident to arrest allows law enforcement to search someone who is under arrest in the interests of officer safety and the preservation of evidence. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that when an officer has probable cause that a person is driving while impaired, that person will be arrested and can be searched without a warrant.
Two members of the court issued a corresponding dissenting opinion. They wrote that the majority ignored a recent United States Supreme Court case (Missouri v. McNeely) where the United States Supreme Court ruled that the natural dissipation of alcohol in one’s body is not reason enough for an officer to avoid the warrant requirement of the 4th Amendment. The dissenters also argued that the majority’s decision undermines and weakens 4th Amendment protections.