Monica Dycus v. State of Indiana, 108 N.E.3d 301

Officers stopped Monica Dycus after a 911 report of aggressive driving and detained her on suspicion of driving with a suspended license; Officer Cooper smelled marijuana and Dycus admitted smoking about an hour earlier.
A Drug Recognition Expert (Officer Winter) was called; Dycus failed some field sobriety tests but tested negative for alcohol on a certified breath test performed at the station.
Officer Winter observed oral signs consistent with marijuana, asked Dycus to submit to a Drug Recognition Exam (DRE), and she consented; the roughly 30-minute DRE assessed multiple physiological and observational indicators using a drug symptom matrix and concluded she was impaired by marijuana.
Dycus then consented to a blood draw; lab testing detected Delta-9 THC. She was charged with operating while intoxicated and operating with a Schedule I/II controlled substance metabolite in her body.
At trial Dycus objected that police should have given a Pirtle advisement (under Indiana law, advising custodial suspects of the right to consult counsel before obtaining consent to a search) before seeking consent to the DRE, and she also raised a Confrontation Clause objection to chain-of-custody exhibits; the trial court overruled both objections and convicted her.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed on the Pirtle issue but rejected the confrontation claim; the Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer, vacated the Court of Appeals opinion, and affirmed the trial court.

Issue	State's Argument	Dycus' Argument	Held
Whether police must give a Pirtle advisement before obtaining consent to a DRE from a person in custody	A DRE is a focused, narrow assessment unlikely to expose unrelated inculpatory evidence, so no Pirtle advisement is required	A person in custody must be advised of the right to consult counsel before consenting to a DRE under Pirtle	No — Pirtle advisement not required for consent to a DRE; DRE evidence admissible
Whether admission of chain-of-custody/shipping documents for toxicology testing violated the Confrontation Clause	Chain-of-custody documents did not create a constitutional confrontation violation; trial court properly admitted them	Admission violated Sixth Amendment confrontation rights	The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court in rejecting the confrontation claim (Court of Appeals had already rejected it)

Pirtle v. State, 323 N.E.2d 634 (Ind. 1975) (establishes requirement that custodial suspects be advised of right to consult counsel before consenting to broad searches)
Larkin v. State, 393 N.E.2d 180 (Ind. 1979) (reaffirms Pirtle advisement rule)
Sims v. State, 413 N.E.2d 556 (Ind. 1980) (clarifies Pirtle applies at the point consent to search is requested)
Sellmer v. State, 842 N.E.2d 358 (Ind. 2006) (applies Pirtle to vehicle searches where custodial consent was obtained)
Garcia-Torres v. State, 949 N.E.2d 1229 (Ind. 2011) (holds Pirtle does not extend to DNA cheek swabs; distinguishes weighty intrusions from narrow searches)
Palmer v. State, 679 N.E.2d 887 (Ind. 1997) (distinguishes fingerprinting from blood-alcohol chemical tests for Fourth Amendment purposes)
Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (U.S. 1966) (establishes that certain blood tests are searches under the Fourth Amendment)
Ackerman v. State, 774 N.E.2d 970 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002) (Court of Appeals: Pirtle not applicable to field sobriety tests)
Datzek v. State, 838 N.E.2d 1149 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005) (Court of Appeals: Pirtle does not apply to blood draws for alcohol testing)