The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police can run breath tests on drivers suspected of drunk driving without violating the Constitution, but must have a warrant before requiring people to take blood alcohol tests.
“Because breath tests are significantly less intrusive than blood tests and in most cases amply serve law enforcement interests, a breath test, but not a blood test, may be administered as a search incident to a lawful arrest for drunk driving. No warrant is needed in this situation,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion in Birchfield vs. North Dakota.
He was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Chief Justice John Roberts.
Because blood tests involve submitting to a potentially painful medical procedure which could reveal significant information about a person’s health, the majority argued they are “significantly more intrusive and their reasonableness must be judged in light of the availability of the less invasive alternative of a breath test.” The majority added that authorities should have time to get a warrant for these tests, as they are normally administered when a person is already detained.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the majority in his partial dissent, claiming that both warrantless searches are constitutional and because making any distinction between breath and blood tests draws “an arbitrary line in the sand.”
Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in a partial dissent that the warrantless breath tests are an unnecessarily violation of personal privacy rights found in the Fourth Amendment, but the majority claimed her “arguments are unconvincing” and they do not reflect precedent. She was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
“If a search warrant were required for every search incident to arrest that does not involve exigent circumstances, the courts would be swamped,” states the majority in response. They also claimed that the “impact of breath tests on privacy is slight, and the need for BAC testing is great.”
