State v. Rodriguez, 20030006-CA.
| Decision Date | 10 June 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 20030006-CA.,20030006-CA. |
| Citation | 2004 UT App 198,93 P.3d 854 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Heather Jo RODRIGUEZ aka Heather Holdman, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Lori J. Seppi and Shannon N. Romero, Salt Lake City, for Appellant.
Mark L. Shurtleff, atty. gen., and Matthew D. Bates, asst. atty. gen., Salt Lake City, for Appellee.
Before Judges DAVIS, JACKSON, and THORNE, Jr.
¶ 1 Heather Jo Rodriguez appeals from the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress evidence and her subsequent conviction through a conditional guilty plea. We reverse.
¶ 2 On the afternoon of May 9, 2001, Heather Jo Rodriguez was driving southbound on Main Street, in Salt Lake City, accompanied by her friend, Terry Stewart. Between 4:45 and 4:50 pm, soon after she passed through the controlled intersection of 17th South and Main Street, Rodriguez abruptly turned left into oncoming traffic, directly in front of a school bus. Rodriguez's sudden turn gave the bus driver no time to evade the car, and the bus struck the passenger side of Rodriguez's car, throwing the car off of the road and onto a nearby yard. The bus driver immediately reported the accident. Paramedics arrived on the scene at 4:50 pm. After removing Rodriguez from the vehicle, the paramedics determined that she was in critical condition and quickly moved her to an ambulance, which transported her to LDS Hospital. The paramedics then noted that Stewart had severe head injuries and determined that she was near death and likely to die. They moved her to an ambulance for transport to the University Hospital. At about that point, the first of the responding Salt Lake City police officers arrived on the scene.
¶ 3 As the officers began to examine the scene and look for possible witnesses they were approached by someone who appeared to be a paramedic. That person told the officers that the occupants of Rodriguez's car smelled of alcohol. When the officers looked in Rodriguez's car, they found a purse, which turned out to be Stewart's. In the purse the officers found an open, partially empty bottle of vodka. Soon thereafter, the supervising officer arrived. He was informed of the circumstances surrounding the accident, the apparent paramedic's observations, and the partially empty bottle of vodka found in the car. He immediately requested that dispatch send an officer to obtain a blood sample from Rodriguez.
¶ 4 At 5:10 pm — no more than twenty-five minutes after the accident occurred — dispatch instructed officer Nate Swensen to locate the driver and "witness a blood draw."1 Swensen first drove to the University Hospital. There, he learned that the driver had been taken to LDS Hospital and that Stewart, the passenger, was expected to die. He then drove to LDS Hospital. Although he did not know Rodriguez's name at the time, when Swensen entered the emergency room he asked the staff to direct him to the "patient that was brought in from the traffic accident." The staff directed him to the CT room where Swensen found Rodriguez lying on a CT table, waiting for a CT scan. He noticed that she was being very uncooperative with the medical staff and that her breath had a heavy odor of alcohol. He also noticed that her eyes were red and that her speech was slurred. In general, Swensen described Rodriguez as "uncooperative," "very angry," and "belligerent."
¶ 5 Upon locating Rodriguez, Swensen asked her some questions, but found her to be uncooperative. He then waited between twenty and twenty-five minutes for the blood draw technician to arrive. When the technician arrived, Swensen informed Rodriguez that they "were going to draw blood from her just as we do in accidents." The technician drew blood from an IV line that had been inserted into Rodriguez's arm upon her arrival. The vials containing the blood were then labeled, stored, and the blood was eventually tested. The test revealed that, at the time of the blood draw, Rodriguez's blood-alcohol level was .39.
¶ 6 Stewart died and Rodriguez was charged with one count of automobile homicide. Rodriguez filed a motion to suppress any evidence derived from the warrantless blood draw, which the trial court initially granted. However, after the State petitioned for relief from the judgment, the trial court reconsidered and denied the motion. Rodriguez subsequently entered into an agreement with the State, pleading guilty to the charge, but reserving her right to appeal the trial court's denial of her motion to suppress. She now appeals.
¶ 7 Rodriguez argues that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress all evidence that resulted from the warrantless blood draw performed after her automobile accident, because the State failed (1) to demonstrate that the officer had probable cause to believe she had committed an alcohol related offense, and (2) to show that the extraction was justified by exigent circumstances. When reviewing a trial court's determination that exigent circumstances justified a warrantless intrusion, we defer to the court's factual findings, but examine its ultimate legal conclusion for correctness. See City of Orem v. Henrie, 868 P.2d 1384, 1386 (Utah Ct.App.1994).
¶ 8 Rodriguez argues that the State's decision to obtain forcibly a blood sample from her was unsupported by either probable cause or exigent circumstances. "Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under both the state and federal constitutions." State v. Morck, 821 P.2d 1190, 1192-93 (Utah Ct.App.1991). "However, the presumption against warrantless searches is not without its exceptions, which are `"jealously and carefully drawn."'" City of Orem v. Henrie, 868 P.2d 1384, 1387-88 (Utah Ct.App.1994) (). "One such exception to the warrant requirement recognized by both the United States Supreme Court and Utah's appellate courts is exigent circumstances." Salt Lake City v. Davidson, 2000 UT App 12,¶ 9, 994 P.2d 1283.
¶ 9 To justify a police officer's decision to extract blood without the benefit of a search warrant, the State bears the burden of showing that (1) the officer had probable cause to believe that the defendant was involved in an alcohol-related offense; (2) the officer had reason to believe the blood sample would produce evidence of the defendant's level of intoxication when the crime was committed; (3) the officer reasonably believed that they were "confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, threatened `the destruction of the evidence,'"; and (4) the method used by the officer to obtain the blood sample was "performed in a reasonable manner." Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 771-72, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1836-37, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966) (citation omitted); see also Henrie, 868 P.2d at 1388 (). Because we find the exigency question to be dispositive, we do not address the issue of probable cause.
¶ 10 Rodriguez argues that the trial court erred in failing to examine the totality of the circumstances of this case before deciding that the drawing of her blood was justified by exigent circumstances. The State counters that "[t]he U.S. Supreme Court and a majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue have held that the evanescence of blood-alcohol evidence coupled with delays inherent in investigating an alcohol-related traffic accident constitutes exigent circumstances under the Fourth Amendment." See, e.g., United States v. Berry, 866 F.2d 887, 891 (6th Cir.1989) (); State v. Cocio, 147 Ariz. 277, 709 P.2d 1336, 1345 (1985) (); People v. Milhollin, 751 P.2d 43, 49 (Colo.1988) (); State v. Cooper, 136 Idaho 697, 39 P.3d 637, 640-41 (Ct.App.2001) (); State v. Bohling, 173 Wis.2d 529, 494 N.W.2d 399, 402 (1993) (); cf. United States v. Reid, 929 F.2d 990, 994 (4th Cir.1991) (). Although we recognize that several jurisdictions have interpreted Schmerber as creating what is, in effect, a per se rule, we conclude that the Schmerber language comports with accepted exigent circumstances doctrine and decline to adopt the per se interpretation urged by the State.
¶ 11 In Schmerber, the United States Supreme Court recognized that in certain situations police officers may be presented with exigent circumstances that justify the officer's failure to comply with the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. See Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 770-72,86 S.Ct. at 1835-36. After an automobile accident in which the defendant and his passenger were injured, the defendant was taken to a hospital where he was placed under arrest. See id. at 758 & n. 2, 86 S.Ct. at 1829 & n. 2. Following the arrest, "[a]t the direction of a police officer, a blood...
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