In August a SherburneCountyjury found my client innocent of all DWI charges in a blood test case. The state had reported his alcohol concentration was .16. We beat that case by showing the jury that the state did not follow the procedures necessary to ensure the results were valid, reliable and accurate. We also showed that our client was not impaired by alcohol.
Last week, an Anoka court ruled in favor of my client where his blood alcohol concentration was .19. “Andy” had rolled his pickup truck on I-35W in Blaine, Minnesota earlier this year. Because of his injuries, Andy was taken to the hospital where police ordered hospital staff to obtain a blood sample. An employee of the hospital staff complied. Police mailed the blood vials to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) for analysis.
Under Minnesota’s Implied Consent Law, any person who has been trained as a physician, medical technician, emergency medical technician, registered nurse, medical technologist, medical technician-paramedic, medical laboratory technician, or laboratory assistant may administer a blood test.
In Andy’s case, the person who withdrew the blood was an “Emergency Department” Technician. ER Technician is not one of the enumerated qualified persons to draw blood under the implied consent statute. As a result the court held the blood test result inadmissible and rescinded my client’s driver’s license revocation.
Because the court ruled in our favor on that issue, the court did not need to address the other issues in the case: whether the officer denied my client the right to consult with an attorney before deciding whether to test or consent. I believe either of these other issues would have been meritorious.
Of the three types of DWI alcohol tests used by Minnesota – blood, breath and urine – I see blood tests the least. This is probably due to the added time and expense required to go to the hospital where a medical professional must draw the blood, and the delay in receiving the results.
While blood tests are the most difficult to beat in a DWI case, the moral of this story is that blood tests can be beaten if challenged by a very competent attorney.
I regularly beat urine and breath tests as well. If you’ve been charged with a DWI or DUI as a result of a blood, breath or urine test, call Chuck Ramsay immediately.
Rules are rules. We are not a nation where the ends justify the means. It must be a legal and lawful process. Without the benefit of highly skilled, hyper-technically proficient scientists-lawyers such as yourself, it truly becomes a slippery slope, then "normal" folk wake up and say "How did this happen to me? and/or How did we get here?" If we care to look at the history of collapsing civilizations, it is rarely sudden, but rather incremental, We get "here" by letting things slide. Great job.
Rules are rules. We are not a nation where the ends justify the means. It must be a legal and lawful process. Without the benefit of highly skilled, hyper-technically proficient scientists-lawyers such as yourself, it truly becomes a slippery slope, then "normal" folk wake up and say "How did this happen to me? and/or How did we get here?" If we care to look at the history of collapsing civilizations, it is rarely sudden, but rather incremental, We get "here" by letting things slide. Great job.
-Justin J. McShane, Esquire, Pennsylvania DUI Attorney