2 weeks Ago
Four months after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled police generally cannot draw blood from a driver who has revoked the consent that state law has created for him, the Court of Appeals has again upheld the defendant's homicide convictions after reasoning police acted in good faith by extracting his blood. Under Colorado's "expressed consent" law , motorists have automatically consented to take a blood or breath test if an officer has probable cause to suspect them of impaired driving. If drivers refuse to test within two hours of being stopped, the refusal can be used against them at trial and is grounds for revoking their driver license.
Previously, Colorado's justices addressed whether the state-created consent meant police could draw the blood of an unconscious DUI suspect. Yes, the court reasoned in People v. Hyde , because "there is no constitutional right to refuse a blood-alcohol test.
" The case of Christopher Oneil Tarr, however, raised the question of whether Colorado's legislature could create the consent necessary to overcome a driver's real-time objection to a blood draw. Backing away from its sweeping statement in Hyde , the Supreme Court concluded in June that police need a warrant — or an exception to the warrant requirement — before extracting blood from an objecting suspect. The justices returned Tarr's case to the Court of Appeals to determine if police did, in fact, have a valid justification for their warrantless blood draw.
Last week, a three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals agreed there was one: "good faith. " Decided: October 24, 2024 Jurisdiction: Arapahoe County Ruling: 3-0 Judges: Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov (author) Jaclyn Casey Brown Robert D.
Hawthorne Background: Colorado Supreme Court rules DUI suspects may revoke consent to blood test, requiring warrant Late one night in August 2016, Tarr was driving drunk in Aurora, well in excess of the speed limit, when he hit and killed Dalton McCreary in a crosswalk. An Arapahoe County jury convicted Tarr of vehicular homicide and other offenses. After the crash, first responders transported Tarr to the hospital.
Law enforcement told him about Colorado's expressed consent law. Tarr initially refused a blood test. When police learned McCreary had died, they informed Tarr a forcible blood draw was on the table, which is authorized in cases of vehicular homicide.
Tarr again declined to provide his consent, but did not resist while his blood was extracted. The results showed Tarr's blood alcohol content at approximately four times the legal limit at the time he struck McCreary. Prior to trial, Tarr attempted to block the test results from being used as evidence, but District Court Judge Ben L.
Leutwyler disagreed, believing the blood draw fit under the consent exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals subsequently felt obligated to conclude, under the Hyde decision, that Tarr had no right to withdraw the consent automatically provided by state law. After the Supreme Court clarified Tarr's objection was valid, the appellate panel determined the blood test results were nonetheless admissible at Tarr's trial because police acted on their good-faith belief that they could extract blood due to the suspected vehicular homicide.
"Significantly, at the time of the blood draw, no Colorado appellate decision had held that a motorist could revoke his statutory consent to a breath or blood test," wrote Judge Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov in the Oct. 24 opinion.
After the Supreme Court decided Tarr's case, "police officers throughout Colorado are on notice that they must obtain a search warrant to obtain a blood sample from a motorist who revokes their statutory consent — even one whom the officers have probable cause to believe committed vehicular homicide," Lipinsky continued. "But police officers were not deemed to know that a warrant was required under these circumstances before." The case is P eople v.
Tarr ..
