State v. Miller, 395 P.3d 584

Background

After a single-vehicle crash the driver (defendant) was treated at Bay Area Hospital; hospital staff drew and tested blood as part of medical care and found BAC .333%.
Trooper Dunlap, at the hospital investigating the crash, smelled alcohol, observed signs of intoxication, and requested consent for a police blood draw; defendant refused.
Hospital staff, citing ORS 676.260(1), disclosed verbally the medical BAC result to Dunlap; Dunlap included it in his report.
Defendant was charged with DUII and related offenses and moved to suppress the hospital’s disclosure as violating his state and federal privacy/search rights; the trial court denied the motion.
Defendant appealed, arguing the disclosure was state action constituting a warrantless search of medical records under Article I, §9 (Oregon) and the Fourth Amendment; the State argued defendant lacked a protected privacy interest.
The court assumed (without deciding) the disclosure could be state action but held that, on the record and arguments before it, defendant had no protected privacy interest in the BAC under either constitution and affirmed denial of suppression.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether hospital disclosure of BAC to police is a constitutionally protected search under OR (Art I, §9)	State: defendant lacked a protected privacy interest in third-party medical records; Gonzalez controls	Defendant: statutory and regulatory privacy protections create a protected privacy interest in medical records/BAC	Court: Gonzalez binding; no protected privacy interest under Art I, §9; disclosure not constitutionally forbidden
Whether hospital disclosure of BAC to police is a Fourth Amendment search	State: mandatory reporting statute (ORS 676.260(1)) and consent to medical treatment make expectation unreasonable	Defendant: refused police consent shows subjective expectation; medical privacy and Ferguson support a reasonable expectation	Court: Ferguson inapplicable (that program targeted patients to gather evidence); here blood drawn/tested for treatment and disclosure allowed by statute; no reasonable expectation of privacy in these circumstances
Whether Ferguson v. City of Charleston controls	Defendant: Ferguson recognized privacy in diagnostic test results shared with nonmedical personnel	State: Ferguson concerned law-enforcement-driven testing programs, not routine medical testing disclosed under reporting laws	Held: Ferguson distinguished—it targeted law-enforcement evidence collection; this case involved routine treatment testing with a statutory reporting duty
Remedy: suppression of BAC evidence	Defendant: suppression required because disclosure was unconstitutional	State: no constitutional violation so evidence admissible	Held: No constitutional violation found on these arguments; suppression denied; conviction affirmed

Key Cases Cited

State v. Gonzalez, 120 Or. App. 249 (1993) (third-party medical records do not necessarily create a constitutionally protected privacy interest under Article I, §9)
Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001) (hospital drug-testing program run for law enforcement purposes implicated Fourth Amendment)
Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001) (Fourth Amendment protects subjective expectations of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable)
United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984) (search occurs when government action infringes a reasonable expectation of privacy)
Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966) (compelled blood draw is a Fourth Amendment search)
Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) (blood alcohol testing and bodily intrusion implicate privacy/bodily integrity)
Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013) (nonconsensual blood draw is a search requiring Fourth Amendment analysis)
State v. Ciancanelli, 339 Or. 282 (2005) (stare decisis and burden on party seeking to overrule precedent)
State v. Ghim, 267 Or. App. 435 (2014) (applying Gonzalez to third-party business records)