State v. Heaney, No. A03-1401.
| Decision Date | 30 March 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. A03-1401. |
| Citation | 676 N.W.2d 698 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Appellant, v. Joseph Steven HEANEY, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
Mike Hatch, Attorney General, St. Paul, MN; and Richard W. Jackson, Jr., Houston County Attorney, Caledonia, MN, for appellant.
Gregory B. Schultz, Caledonia, MN, for respondent.
Considered and decided by ANDERSON, Presiding Judge, STONEBURNER, Judge, and HUDSON, Judge.
Respondent Joseph Steven Heaney is charged with four counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in death, and four counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm, as a result of a one-car accident that occurred in Houston County. One passenger died at the scene of the accident and another passenger was seriously injured. The state appeals a district court order suppressing Heaney's blood plasma sample and test results on the sample subpoenaed from a Wisconsin hospital where Heaney was treated following the accident. We conclude that the district court erred by suppressing the sample for violation of due process because Heaney's due process rights were not violated when the Wisconsin court ordered production of the sample by subpoena rather than search warrant. But because the district court correctly concluded that the evidence is inadmissible under the Minnesota physician-patient privilege, we affirm the district court's exclusion of the evidence.
Respondent Heaney rolled his vehicle in Houston County causing the immediate death of one passenger and critical injuries to another passenger. A police officer arrived at the scene minutes after the accident and told Heaney that he detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage on Heaney's breath. Heaney told the officer that he had been driving, that it was his friend's birthday, and that they had consumed alcohol earlier in the evening. Heaney tested.101 on a PBT.
Heaney was transported by ambulance to the nearest appropriate medical center, which was in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Houston County police chief investigator Gary Eddy arrived at the hospital approximately an hour and forty-nine minutes after the estimated time of the accident. Ambulance personnel who had transported Heaney to the hospital told Eddy that they had noted the odor of alcohol on Heaney's breath, and that Heaney had told them he was the driver of the car.
Eddy spoke with Heaney a few minutes later. Heaney said he did not want to speak with the police about the accident at that time. Eddy read him the Minnesota Implied Consent Advisory form, including paragraph 3, which states, "Because I also have reason to believe you have violated the Criminal Vehicular Homicide or Injury Laws, a test will be taken with or without your consent." Eddy also read paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Advisory, advising Heaney of his right to speak to an attorney and that if a test is unreasonably delayed or refused, Heaney would be considered to have refused the test.
Heaney then asked to speak with an attorney. Because Heaney was being treated at the medical center, he was not able to speak with his attorney until two hours and nineteen minutes after the time of the accident. After speaking to his attorney, Heaney initially agreed to submit to Eddy's request for a blood test.
While Eddy was waiting for a laboratory technician to arrive to take the blood test, the attending physician told Eddy that a medical blood test had been obtained and that records of that test could be subpoenaed. The parties stipulated that Heaney's blood plasma tested by the medical center was collected an hour and twenty-five minutes after the accident. Prior to leaving the hospital, Eddy was shown documentation that testing of the sample taken from Heaney by hospital staff showed an alcohol concentration of .144.
When the laboratory technician arrived, Heaney refused to submit to a blood test and stated that he would take a urine test instead. The officer did not demand that Heaney give a blood sample.1 Heaney gave a urine sample about three hours after the time of the accident.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension subsequently tested the urine sample and reported an alcohol concentration of .08. The state contends that the type of extrapolation that can be made from a blood sample cannot be made from a urine sample to prove what Heaney's alcohol concentration would have been at the time of the accident.
Eddy subsequently gave the La Crosse County District Attorney's office a request for production of documents and a supporting affidavit, requesting an order requiring the medical center to produce Heaney's medical records, quality control documents for equipment used in treatment and testing related to the records, and the original blood plasma sample obtained from Heaney. A La Crosse County Deputy District Attorney obtained a "Subpoena for Documents, Sections 968.13 and 968.135," signed by the judge of La Crosse County Wisconsin Circuit Court, and an order, requiring production of the requested items. Eddy received the requested medical records by mail, including results of the alcohol concentration test, showing a Eddy picked up the blood plasma sample from the medical center and delivered it to the BCA lab in St. Paul. The BCA test of the sample showed an alcohol concentration of .14.
The state charged Heaney with four counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in death under Minn.Stat. § 609.21, subd. 1(1), subd. 1(2), subd. 1(3), and subd. 1(4) (2002), and four counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm under Minn.Stat. § 609.21, subds. 2a(1), 2a(2)(i), 2a(3) and 2a(4) (2002). Several of the counts require the state to prove that Heaney had an alcohol concentration of .10 or more at the time of the accident, or that he had an alcohol concentration of .10 or more as measured within two hours of the time of the accident.
Heaney moved to suppress the sample and records obtained from the hospital, and the urine test, and for dismissal of the charges for lack of probable cause. Among other arguments not involved in this appeal, he argued that the blood plasma sample and test results obtained by the hospital are privileged information, that he did not authorize their disclosure, and that the information was obtained in violation of the physician-patient privilege under Minn.Stat. § 595 .02, subd. 1(d). He also argued that the blood plasma sample was obtained in violation of the subpoena provisions of Rule 22 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure, and that his due process rights were violated because Wisconsin does not permit seizure of a blood plasma sample from a medical facility by subpoena, but only by search warrant. Although the district court denied Heaney's motion to dismiss the charges, it granted Heaney's motion to exclude the blood plasma sample and the results of tests conducted on the sample because the evidence was obtained in violation of Minn.Stat. § 595.02, subd. 1(d), the physician-patient privilege. In an amended order, the district court also based suppression of the blood plasma on a violation of due process and a violation of Rule 22 of the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure because a subpoena, rather than a warrant, was used to obtain the sample. This appeal followed.
1. Did the district court clearly err by suppressing the blood plasma sample on the basis that Heaney's due process rights and Minn. R.Crim. P. 22 were violated by use of a subpoena rather than a search warrant?
2. Did the district court err by applying the Minnesota physician-patient privilege to exclude Heaney's blood plasma sample and alcohol-concentration test results?
In order to appeal a pre-trial order under Minnesota Rule of Criminal Procedure 28.04, subd. 2(1), the state "must clearly and unequivocally" show that the district court's order will have a "critical impact" on the state's ability to successfully prosecute, and that the order constituted error. State v. Zanter, 535 N.W.2d 624, 630 (Minn.1995). The state is not required to show that the remaining evidence is so weak that all possibility of conviction has been destroyed or that absence of the evidence will result in dismissal; critical impact may be shown where lack of suppressed evidence significantly reduces the likelihood of conviction, or "where the effect is to seriously impede, although not to completely foreclose, continuation of the prosecution." State v. Joon Kyu Kim, 398 N.W.2d 544, 551 (Minn.1987) (citation omitted).
In this case, the medical center's testing of Heaney's blood plasma is the only measure of his alcohol concentration made within two hours of the time of the accident, and several of the charges against Heaney require the state to prove that his alcohol concentration was over .10 at the time of, or as measured within two hours of, the accident. The state contends that the urine sample obtained almost three hours after the accident cannot be used, as a blood sample taken at that time could have been, to extrapolate what Heaney's alcohol concentration would have been earlier.
We have held that suppressing a chemical test has a "critical impact" on prosecution in driving-while-impaired cases, even where non-test-related evidence of intoxication exists. State v. Ault, 478 N.W.2d 797, 798-99 (Minn.App.1991). And Heaney does not dispute that suppression has a critical impact on the prosecution. We conclude that the state has met its burden to show critical impact in this case.
The district court agreed with Heaney's argument that the blood plasma sample was obtained in violation of Wisconsin due process requirements because the sample was obtained by a subpoena for documents under Wis. Stat. § 968.135 (2002), rather than by a search warrant under Wis. Stat. § 968.13 (2002). The Wisconsin statute under which the subpoena...
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State v. Heaney, No. A03-1401.
...a "better rule of law" analysis, the district court correctly applied Minnesota's physician-patient privilege statute. State v. Heaney, 676 N.W.2d 698 (Minn.App.2004). The state sought review on the issue of whether Heaney's blood-alcohol evidence is admissible in Minnesota where the eviden......
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State v. Atwood
...v. Heaney , No. K5-02-262, Order at 3 (Houston Cty. Dist. Ct. filed Dec. 19, 2002). The court of appeals affirmed. State v. Heaney , 676 N.W.2d 698, 708–09 (Minn. App. 2004) ("The district court did not err by excluding Heaney’s medical records, including the blood plasma sample and the alc......
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...to suppress evidence of a chemical test result in a drunk driving case critically impacts the prosecution. See State v. Heaney, 676 N.W.2d 698, 704 (Minn. App. 2004), rev'd on other grounds, 689 N.W.2d 168 (Minn. 2004). We therefore turn to the merits of the state's challenge to the suppres......
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