State v. Fawcett
| Decision Date | 11 January 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. A15–0938.,A15–0938. |
| Citation | 877 N.W.2d 555 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Debra Lee FAWCETT, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN; and Anthony C. Palumbo, Anoka County Attorney, Kelsey R. Kelley, Assistant County Attorney, Anoka, MN, for appellant.
Mark D. Nyvold, Fridley, MN, for respondent.
Considered and decided by STAUBER, Presiding Judge; KIRK, Judge; and WILLIS, Judge.
The state appeals from the district court's pretrial order suppressing blood-test results in the prosecution of respondent Debra Lee Fawcett for criminal vehicular operation. We conclude that the district court erred by holding that Fawcett retained privacy interests in her blood after it was lawfully obtained under a search warrant. Accordingly, no additional warrant was required to justify the chemical analysis of her blood. Therefore, we reverse and remand.
On May 24, 2014, at approximately 5:08 p.m., Blaine Police Officer Matzke was dispatched to a two-vehicle accident. Officer Matzke observed that the driver of a vehicle with heavy damage was bleeding and obviously injured. The driver told Officer Matzke that she was driving through an intersection when she "t-boned" a vehicle that ran a red light.
Blaine Police Officer Hawley was also dispatched to the accident. Officer Hawley spoke with the driver of the second vehicle and identified her as respondent Debra Lee Fawcett. Fawcett was uncooperative with Officer Hawley's attempts to assess her possible injuries and kept asking to call her daughter, who it was later determined had recently died. Fawcett stated that she had been at a car lot with her daughter but could not identify where the car lot was. When Officer Hawley asked Fawcett where she had been going, Fawcett repeatedly stated only that she wanted to call her daughter.
Officer Hawley believed that she smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from Fawcett. Officer Matzke believed that he smelled a hint of an alcoholic beverage emanating from Fawcett's vehicle. Officer Matzke asked Fawcett if she had come from the VFW club nearby and how many drinks she had earlier. Fawcett stated that she had not come from the VFW but that she had had two or three beers. While conversing with her, Officer Matzke believed that he detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage on Fawcett's breath.
Officer Matzke contacted Blaine Police Detective Johann to discuss bringing criminal-vehicular-operation charges against Fawcett. Detective Johann directed Officer Matzke to read Fawcett the implied-consent advisory and indicated that in the meantime, he would seek a search warrant for the blood draw. At 5:29 p.m., Officer Matzke read the implied-consent advisory to Fawcett, who had been loaded into an ambulance. Officer Matzke informed Fawcett that Minnesota law required her to take a test to determine if she was under the influence of alcohol, but he did not read the portion of the advisory about testing to determine if she was under the influence of a controlled substance. Officer Matzke then read, "Because I also have probable cause to believe you have violated the criminal vehicular homicide or injury laws, a test will be taken with or without your consent."
Fawcett told Officer Matzke that she wanted to contact an attorney. At the hospital, Officer Matzke made a phone available to Fawcett. Fawcett was unable to reach her attorney and said that she was finished using the phone. At approximately 6:27 p.m., Fawcett agreed to submit to a blood test. Officer Matzke waited to request a blood draw by medical personnel until Detective Johann could obtain a search warrant.
In his application for a search warrant and supporting affidavit, Detective Johann stated the following facts: There had been a motor-vehicle crash and one or more persons suffered bodily harm as a result of the crash. Officers identified Fawcett as the driver of one of the vehicles and stated that she admitted that she had two or three drinks "just prior to" the crash. Fawcett smelled of an alcoholic beverage. Officers at the scene believed that Fawcett had been drinking. Detective Johann applied for the warrant on the grounds that Fawcett's blood sample "constitutes evidence which tends to show a crime has been committed, or tends to show that a particular person has committed a crime." He also stated that he sought a blood sample "as evidence of the crime of criminal vehicular operation/homicide."
The search warrant was granted and authorized a blood sample to be taken from Fawcett and forwarded "to an approved lab for testing." The search warrant states that the affidavit and application were "incorporated by reference into this search warrant." It also states that Fawcett's blood sample "constitutes evidence which tends to show a crime has been committed, or tends to show that a particular person has committed a crime." Finally, the search warrant states that "due to the dissipation of alcohol/drugs in the human body this warrant may be served at anytime during the day or night."
Detective Johann arrived at the hospital at approximately 6:45 p.m. with the search warrant authorizing a blood draw. Fawcett requested a breath test. Officer Matzke administered a preliminary breath test and the result was a reading of 0.00. Fawcett denied to Detective Johann that she was intoxicated, and Detective Johann did not personally observe any signs of impairment. Nevertheless, a hospital employee then took a sample of Fawcett's blood. Following the blood draw, Fawcett told the officers that she was upset and depressed about the death of her daughter three months earlier. Fawcett also stated that she was on Lorazepam and Wellbutrin. The officers gave Fawcett a copy of the warrant.
Detective Johann received a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) report on June 24, 2014, indicating that Fawcett's blood contained no alcohol and that additional toxicology reports would follow. Detective Johann received a second BCA report on September 9, 2014, indicating the presence in Fawcett's blood at the time of the accident of a metabolite of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Alprazolam, both of which are controlled substances under Minnesota law. See Minn.Stat. § 152.02, subd. 2(h), subd. 5(c)(2) (2014). A subsequent investigation into Fawcett's prescription history revealed a valid prescription for Alprazolam.
The state charged Fawcett with criminal vehicular operation, in violation of Minn.Stat. § 609.21, subd. 1(2)(ii) (2012).1 The complaint indicated that although Fawcett had a valid prescription for Alprazolam at the time of the crash, "the terms of the ... prescription were violated when she consumed THC." Fawcett moved the district court to suppress all evidence of the presence of drugs in the blood sample. The district court conducted a contested omnibus hearing on January 29, 2015. No testimony was presented at the hearing. The state submitted police reports as an exhibit and Fawcett stipulated that the reports were factually accurate. The district court granted Fawcett's motion to suppress the evidence, finding that the blood sample was lawfully obtained under the search warrant and that testing of the blood sample for alcohol was lawful but that the subsequent testing of the blood sample for the presence of drugs was unlawful. This pretrial appeal follows.
Did the district court err by concluding that the search warrant authorizing a blood draw did not support testing of the blood sample for the presence of controlled substances?
Because this is a pretrial appeal by the state, we must first determine whether the suppression of the controlled-substance test results will have a critical impact on the state's case. State v. Stavish, 868 N.W.2d 670, 674 (Minn.2015). A pretrial order may be appealed only when the state shows "the district court's alleged error, unless reversed, will have a critical impact on the outcome of the trial." Minn. R.Crim. P. 28.04, subd. 2(b). The parties agree, as do we, that the suppression of evidence will have a critical impact on the outcome of the trial.
"When reviewing a district court's pretrial order on a motion to suppress evidence, we review the district court's factual findings under a clearly erroneous standard and the district court's legal determinations de novo." State v. Gauster, 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn.2008) (quotation omitted). "We may independently review facts that are not in dispute, and determine, as a matter of law, whether the evidence need be suppressed." Id. (quotation omitted). Notably, Fawcett does not challenge the legality of the blood draw or the legality of chemical analysis of the blood to determine her alcohol concentration but argued only that the chemical analysis of her blood for controlled substances was unlawful.2 The state argues that, regardless of the scope of the search warrant in this case, once the state has lawfully obtained a person's blood sample for the purpose of chemical analysis, the person has lost any legitimate expectation of privacy in any test results from that sample. This is a matter of first impression for this court.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV; see also Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. An individual may invoke the Fourth Amendment by showing "that he personally has an expectation of privacy in the place searched, and that his expectation is reasonable." Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83, 88, 119 S.Ct. 469, 472, 142 L.Ed.2d 373 (1998). "The overriding function of the Fourth Amendment is to protect personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State." Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 767, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1834, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966).
There is no shortage of legal analysis concerning compelled blood draws. See, e.g., Missouri v....
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State v. Randall
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