State v. Bloomfield
| Decision Date | 10 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14CA3 |
| Citation | 2015 Ohio 1082 |
| Parties | STATE OF OHIO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NATHAN J. BLOOMFIELD, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
DECISION AND JUDGMENT ENTRY
APPEARANCES:
Gene Meadows, Portsmouth, Ohio, for appellant.
Brigham M. Anderson, Lawrence County Prosecuting Attorney, and W. Mack Anderson, Lawrence County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Ironton, Ohio, for appellee.
{¶1} Nathan Bloomfield is alleged to be the driver of a vehicle that crashed, killing its other occupant. After a Lawrence County grand jury indicted Bloomfield for aggravated vehicular homicide, he filed a motion to suppress the results of a blood-alcohol test. The trial court denied the motion and the case proceeded to a jury trial, which resulted in a guilty verdict.
{¶2} Bloomfield challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress, asserting that the results of his blood-sample analysis are inadmissible because the sample was not collected under a valid search warrant as required by various constitutional and statutory provisions. Medical personnel in a Kentucky hospital, where he had been transported for treatment after the accident, withdrew his blood sample. The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures regulates conduct by government officials, not private persons. Because a privatehospital took his blood sample for purposes of his medical treatment, rather than at the direction of government officials, we reject Bloomfield's constitutional arguments. And because he was unconscious and the trooper had probable cause to believe that he operated the motor vehicle while intoxicated, Bloomfield impliedly consented to the blood test pursuant to R.C. 4511.191(A)(4).
{¶3} Next Bloomfield contends that the results of his blood-alcohol test were inadmissible because the sample was not withdrawn, maintained, and analyzed in accordance with Ohio Adm.Code Chapter 3701-53. The evidence introduced at the suppression hearing negates this contention, as witnesses testified to the procedure used to collect, store, and transport the sample. Because the state established that the test was administered in substantial compliance with the administrative regulations, the test results were admissible.
{¶4} Finally, Bloomfield claims that the Ohio State Highway Patrol lacked jurisdiction to seize his blood sample in Kentucky. However, regardless of where the state got the sample, the state's act of obtaining the blood sample taken by a private entity did not implicate any federal or state constitutional rights.
{¶5} While traveling in Lawrence County, Ohio Nathan Bloomfield was involved in a one-vehicle accident that threw him from the vehicle and rendered him unconscious. John Markel, who was also ejected from the vehicle, died at the scene. Emergency medical personnel transported Bloomfield by ambulance to Kings' Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, Kentucky, where the hospital drew his blood as a standard protocol for his medical treatment. Because witnesses at the scene indicatedthat Bloomfield smelled of alcohol and that he had been driving the car, an Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper obtained a subpoena for his blood sample 3 days after the accident. The trooper retrieved the sample from the hospital and mailed it to the Ohio State Highway Patrol Crime Lab, which determined it contained 0.146 grams by weight of alcohol per one milliliters of whole blood.
{¶6} A Lawrence County grand jury indicted Bloomfield on one count of aggravated vehicular homicide in violation of R.C. 2903.06(A)(1). Ultimately, he filed a motion to suppress the blood-alcohol test result, raising two separate grounds for the motion. First he challenged the withdrawal of his blood, claiming that it was not justified because it occurred without a warrant and without his consent, either express, or implied pursuant to the statute; and he challenged the Ohio Highway Patrol's seizure of the blood sample in Kentucky. Second he claimed that his blood sample was not withdrawn, maintained, and analyzed in accordance with Ohio Adm.Code Chapter 3701-53.
{¶7} The trial court bifurcated the suppression motion and initially heard legal arguments on Bloomfield's first arguments. During that hearing Bloomfield's counsel emphasized that he was challenging the validity of the taking of his blood sample in the Kentucky hospital, the validity of the state's subsequent seizure of the blood sample pursuant to the subpoena, and the applicability of the Ohio implied consent statute. He specifically acknowledged he was not challenging the constitutionality of that statute.
{¶8} The trial court issued a decision overruling the first portion of Bloomfield's suppression motion. The court ruled that the withdrawal of blood in Kentucky did notviolate any constitutional or statutory provision because it was collected by hospital personnel, was warranted by the Ohio implied-consent statute, and "nothing in [the statutes] indicates that the drawing of blood would be limited to the County in which the accident occurred or the State in which the accident occurred, when exigent circumstances require the immediate transfer of the Defendant to different medical facilities, which may be in an immediate and adjoining State."
{¶9} At the subsequent evidentiary hearing on compliance with the administrative code, Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Laura Harvey testified she responded to a call of an accident at 5:56 p.m. on June 29, 2012 on State Route 93 in Lawrence County. Trooper Harvey arrived at the scene at 6:16 p.m. and observed Bloomfield, who was unconscious and bleeding extensively from his head, on the side of the road. About that time a severe storm hit the area, scattering tree limbs onto the roadways, and knocking out power to much of the area, including the patrol's dispatch communication center. Because of the weather and debris, Bloomfield went by ambulance to King's Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, Kentucky to treat his head trauma. When the emergency medical technicians placed Bloomfield in the ambulance, one of them noted that he reeked of alcohol. The officers found the vehicle's other occupant's dead body later under some tree limbs and branches about ten feet from the crash site. A nurse who showed up at the crash site told the trooper that she had seen the car go by and John Markel was in the passenger seat. Based on this statement and the fact that the car was Bloomfield's, Trooper Harvey concluded that Bloomfield had been driving the car when it crashed.
{¶10} Consistent with the hospital's routine protocols (without any direction from law enforcement officers) certified phlebotomist Chrissa Evans drew samples of Bloomfield's blood at 7:20 p.m. on June 29, 2012. According to Shawn Boggs, the hospital's director of laboratory services, protocol included using a non-alcoholic antiseptic preparation pad on the patient's skin, drawing blood with a sterile needle into a vacuum sealed tube, labeling the tubes with the patient's identification, and refrigerating the samples for storage. Evans confirmed that she followed the hospital's rules and regulations for drawing blood samples for alcohol testing when she drew Bloomfield's blood. Evans used the non-alcoholic antiseptic pad to prepare Bloomfield's skin and then drew the blood samples, attaching a sticker containing Bloomfield's identification, the date and time of collection, and her initials to the samples.
{¶11} Trooper Harvey investigated the crash and continued to interview witnesses. She could not follow the ambulance transporting Bloomfield to the Kentucky hospital because patrol was short-staffed, they were still looking for Bloomfield's passenger, the storm had caused other crashes, including a car that had people trapped in it, and fallen debris had made the area unsafe. Upon concluding her investigation, Trooper Harvey sought and received a subpoena issued by the Lawrence County Prosecutor's Office to obtain the blood samples taken by the Kentucky hospital.1
{¶12} Three days after the accident Trooper Harvey went to the hospital and submitted the subpoena for the blood samples to the hospital's director of laboratory services. Boggs retrieved the samples from refrigeration and handed them to the trooper after 3:00 p.m. on that date. Trooper Harvey then transported the bloodsamples back to her patrol post, where she packaged and mailed them to the Ohio State Highway Patrol Crime Laboratory at 8:00 p.m. that evening. During this delay the samples were in transit.
{¶13} Deanna Nielsen, the lab director of the alcohol-testing section of the Ohio State Highway Patrol Crime Laboratory, testified that the lab received the blood samples on July 6, 2012, that they were placed in a refrigerator, and that she tested one of the samples on July 11. Nielsen noted that the sample she tested contained a solid anticoagulant, and that both samples were refrigerated, sealed, and labeled. Nielsen tested the sample and determined that it contained 0.146 grams by weight of alcohol per one milliliters of whole blood. Nielsen testified that she complied with all the rules and regulations set forth in the Ohio Administrative Code concerning the lab's treatment, testing, and maintenance of Bloomfield's blood sample. Nielsen noticed no anomalies with the blood sample when she tested it; the labels on the tubes were in pristine condition when she took the samples out for testing.
{¶14} The trial court determined that the samples and procedures complied with Ohio law. Therefore, the trial court denied the remaining portion of Bloomfield's motion to suppress.
{¶15} The case proceeded to a jury trial, which resulted in a verdict finding Bloomfield guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide.
{¶16} Bloomfield assigns the following errors for our...
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