State of Minnesota v. Ryan Mark Thompson
2016 Minn. LEXIS 656
| Minn. | 2016Background
- In April 2012 police stopped Ryan Mark Thompson after observing erratic driving and signs of intoxication; he failed field sobriety tests and was arrested for DWI.
- At the detention center officers read the implied-consent advisory and asked Thompson to submit to a blood or urine test; Thompson refused both and was charged under Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2 (test-refusal statute).
- Thompson was tried on stipulated facts and convicted of test refusal; the court of appeals reversed, holding the statute unconstitutional as applied.
- The State appealed, arguing warrantless urine (and blood) testing is permissible as a search incident to arrest, and alternatively that the good-faith exception saves the conviction.
- The Minnesota Supreme Court considered Birchfield v. North Dakota and related Fourth Amendment precedent to assess whether warrantless urine or blood tests qualify as searches incident to arrest and whether criminalizing refusal is permissible.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument (State) | Defendant's Argument (Thompson) | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether warrantless blood/urine tests are constitutional as searches incident to arrest | Warrantless urine (and blood) tests are lawful incident-to-arrest; arrestees may be prosecuted for refusal | Warrantless urine/blood tests are not covered by the incident-to-arrest exception; refusal protects Fourth Amendment rights | Warrantless blood tests may not be incident-to-arrest (Birchfield); warrantless urine tests do not qualify as incident-to-arrest in Minnesota |
| Whether Birchfield forecloses warrantless blood draws | Birchfield supports incident-to-arrest for blood | Thompson: blood draws are significantly intrusive and need a warrant | Birchfield prohibits warrantless blood draws incident to arrest absent exigency; Minnesota follows Birchfield |
| Whether warrantless urine tests are permissible incident-to-arrest | Urine tests are less physically intrusive and thus permissible | Urine tests implicate privacy (retention, mining of data, compelled public urination) and are more like blood tests; breath tests are adequate alternative | Warrantless urine tests do not qualify as incident-to-arrest because of privacy intrusion and availability of less-invasive breath tests |
| Whether the good-faith exception saves the conviction | Officer relied on then-binding precedent; suppression / relief should be denied under good-faith exception | Good-faith exception is evidentiary and inapplicable because Thompson did not seek to exclude evidence | Good-faith exception inapplicable here; conviction cannot be upheld on that basis |
Key Cases Cited
- Birchfield v. North Dakota, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016) (Fourth Amendment analysis: warrantless breath tests permissible incident to arrest; warrantless blood draws are not)
- Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014) (framework for balancing privacy intrusion against governmental need; limits on searches incident to arrest)
- Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs.’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) (privacy interests implicated by collection and observation of bodily-function samples)
- United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973) (categorical rule permitting certain searches incident to lawful arrest)
- Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1958 (2013) (upholding DNA swab of arrestee but not as an incident-to-arrest precedent for all bodily-sample searches)
- Camara v. Mun. Ct., 387 U.S. 523 (1967) (constitutional right to insist on a warrant for otherwise unreasonable searches)
- County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 (1998) (limits of substantive due process where a specific constitutional provision governs)
- State v. Bernard, 859 N.W.2d 762 (Minn. 2015) (state decision affirmed by Birchfield on breath tests; treated as binding precedent in Minnesota)