State v. Rios

• Decision Date: 26 April 2016
• Docket Number: No. 43017.,43017.
• Citation: 160 Idaho 262,371 P.3d 316
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Kyle Nicholas RIOS, Defendant–Respondent.

160 Idaho 262

371 P.3d 316

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Kyle Nicholas RIOS, Defendant–Respondent.

No. 43017.

Supreme Court of Idaho, Boise, April 2016 Term.

April 26, 2016.

Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for appellant. Mark W. Olson argued.

Clark & Feeney, LLP, Lewiston, for respondent. Paul T. Clark argued.

J. JONES, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from an order issued by the District Court of Nez Perce County suppressing the results of a warrantless blood alcohol test. Respondent Kyle Rios was involved in a car accident in Lewiston, Idaho. After the accident, Rios was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital by Officer Williams. At the hospital, Rios declined to sign a consent form for a blood draw. Without obtaining a warrant, Officer Williams directed hospital staff to draw Rios' blood for a blood alcohol test. Rios did not verbally or physically resist. Based in part on the results of the blood alcohol test, Rios was charged with felony vehicular manslaughter and felony leaving the scene of the accident. Rios filed a motion to suppress the results of the blood alcohol test, alleging the results were obtained through an unlawful search and seizure. The district court granted Rios' motion, concluding Rios withdrew implied consent to the blood draw by declining to sign the consent form. The State appealed.

I.FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The facts of this case are largely uncontested. On December 1, 2013, Rios was involved in an automobile collision in Lewiston, Idaho. After the collision, Rios was helped out of his vehicle by witnesses and began walking away from the accident. The driver of the other vehicle died at the scene.

Rios was stopped by Officer Williams. Officer Williams noted Rios had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and smelled like alcohol. After speaking with witnesses at the scene, Officer Williams placed Rios under arrest for driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a crash resulting in injury or death. Officer Williams then transported Rios to a nearby hospital.

At the hospital, Officer Williams read Rios the administrative license suspension ("ALS") advisory form and presented Rios with a blood draw consent form.¹ Rios declined to sign the consent form. Officer Williams nonetheless directed hospital personnel to draw Rios' blood without first obtaining a warrant. Rios presented his arm to the phlebotomist and did not physically or verbally resist the blood draw. The blood alcohol test revealed a BAC of .263.

Rios was subsequently charged with felony vehicular manslaughter and felony leaving the scene of the accident. Rios filed a motion to suppress the blood test results, alleging the results were obtained through an unlawful search and seizure. A hearing was held on January 6, 2015. The district court granted Rios' motion to suppress, concluding Rios withdrew implied consent for the blood draw by declining to sign the consent form. The State timely appealed.

II.ISSUE ON APPEAL

Whether the district court erred in suppressing the results of the blood alcohol test.

III.STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review "a district court's order granting a motion to suppress evidence using a bifurcated standard of review. This Court accepts the trial court's findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous, but may freely review the trial court's application of constitutional principles in light of those facts." State v. Wulff, 157 Idaho 416, 418, 337 P.3d 575, 577 (2014) (citation omitted).

IV.ANALYSIS

"Requiring that a person submit to a blood alcohol test is a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I Section 17 of the Idaho Constitution." Wulff, 157 Idaho at 418, 337 P.3d at 577. "The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. The Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all state-initiated searches and seizures; it merely proscribes those which are unreasonable." Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 1803, 114 L.Ed.2d 297, 302 (1991) (citation omitted). "Like the Fourth Amendment, the purpose of Art. I, § 17 is to protect Idaho citizens' reasonable expectation of privacy against arbitrary governmental intrusion." Wulff, 157 Idaho at 418, 337 P.3d at 577. Our analysis here focuses on the Fourth Amendment as the parties' arguments are based only on the United States Constitution.

"Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 419, 337 P.3d at 578. "To overcome this presumption of unreasonableness, the search must fall within a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement." Id. One such exception is consent. The United States Supreme Court has "long approved consensual searches because it is no doubt reasonable for the police to conduct a search once they have been permitted to do so." Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 250–51, 111 S.Ct. at 1803, 114 L.Ed.2d at 302. "Where the validity of a search rests on consent, the State has the burden of proving that the necessary consent was obtained and that it was freely and voluntarily given." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1323–24, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 235–36 (1983). "The standard for measuring the scope of a suspect's consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of ‘objective’ reasonableness—what would the typical reasonable person have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect?" Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 251, 111 S.Ct. at 1803, 114 L.Ed.2d at 302.

Under Idaho Code section 18–8002, a person gives implied consent to evidentiary testing, including blood alcohol testing, when that person drives on Idaho roads and a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe that person has been driving in violation of Idaho's DUI statutes.² I.C. § 18–8002(1), (9) – (10). Section 18–8002 also provides penalties for drivers who refuse to submit to alcohol concentration testing, including a $250 fine and a one-year driver's license suspension for a first refusal. I.C. § 18–8002(4)(b)–(c). In Wulff, we held that the United States Supreme Court's decision in Missouri v. McNeely, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 1552, 185 L.Ed.2d 696 (2013), prohibited the use of an implied consent statute as an irrevocable per se exception to the warrant requirement. 157 Idaho at 422, 337 P.3d at 581. Under McNeely, implied consent must be revocable because "irrevocable implied consent operates as per se rule that cannot fit under the consent exception because it does not always analyze the voluntariness of that consent." Id.

Because implied consent must be revocable, we held that implied consent may justify a warrantless blood draw only when (1) the driver gave his or her initial consent voluntarily, and (2) the driver continued to give voluntary consent at the time of evidentiary testing. Id. at 423, 337 P.3d at 582 (overruling State v. Diaz, 144 Idaho 300, 160 P.3d 739 (2007) and State v. Woolery, 116 Idaho 368, 775 P.2d 1210 (1989) ). "Drivers in Idaho give their initial consent to evidentiary testing by driving on Idaho roads voluntarily." Id. In Wulff, we did not specify how to determine whether a defendant "continued to give voluntary consent at the time of evidentiary testing." However, our recent decisions on this issue have focused on whether a defendant revoked implied consent before testing. State v. Eversole, No. 43277, ––– Idaho ––––, ––––, 371 P.3d 293, 297–98, 2016 WL 1296185, at *5 (Apr. 4, 2016) ; State v. Halseth, 157 Idaho 643, 646, 339 P.3d 368, 371 (2014). As we stated in Eversole, "a defendant's refusal, protest or objection to alcohol concentration testing terminates the implied consent given under Idaho's implied consent statute." ––– Idaho at ––––, 371 P.3d at 296, 2016 WL 1296185 at *3. Under Idaho law, a driver's implied consent continues if it is not revoked before the time of evidentiary testing. Therefore, implied consent may justify a warrantless blood draw only when (1) the driver gave his or her initial consent by voluntarily driving on Idaho roads, and (2) the driver did not revoke consent before the time of evidentiary testing. "[A]fter a defendant has revoked consent, officers no longer may act pursuant to that initial voluntary consent." State v. Smith, 159 Idaho 15, 25, 355 P.3d 644, 654 (Ct.App.2015), rev. denied (Aug. 18, 2015). "Of course, an individual may renew his consent after revoking it." Id.

Rios contends that implied consent alone does not satisfy the consent exception to the warrant requirement, and the State is required to prove a suspect gave actual voluntary consent at the time evidentiary testing was requested. We addressed a similar argument in our recent decision in Eversole, ––– Idaho ––––, 371 P.3d 293, 2016 WL 1296185. There, the defendant argued implied consent is not sufficient to satisfy the consent exception to the warrant requirement because, under McNeely, the court is required to evaluate consent based on the totality of the circumstances. Id. at ––––, 371 P.3d at 296–97, 2016 WL 1296185, at *4. In rejecting this argument, we stated: "Nowhere does McNeely suggest that implied consent statutes do not constitute constitutional consent or that a totality of the circumstances test is the exclusive means for establishing consent." Id. (citing McNeely, ––– U.S. at ––––, 133 S.Ct. at 1556, 185 L.Ed.2d at 702 ). Rather,

McNeely recognized that implied consent statutes are one type of "a broad range of legal tools to enforce [ ] drunk-driving laws and to secure BAC evidence without undertaking warrantless nonconsensual blood draws. " – –– U.S. at ––––, 133 S.Ct. at 1566 (emphasis added). The Court stated, "Such laws impose significant consequences when a motorist withdraws consent; typically the motorist's driver's license is immediately suspended or revoked, and most States allow the motorist's refusal to take a BAC test to be used as evidence against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution." Id. Thus, McNeely suggests that implied consent statutes are still a

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