State of Minnesota v. Ryan Mark Thompson , 2016 Minn. LEXIS 656 ( 2016 )

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN SUPREME COURT
A15-0076
Court of Appeals Gildea, C.J.
Took no part, Chutich, McKeig, JJ.
State of Minnesota,
Appellant,
vs. Filed: October 12, 2016
Office of Appellate Courts
Ryan Mark Thompson,
Respondent.
________________________
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and
Daniel A. McIntosh, Steele County Attorney, Julia A. Forbes, Assistant County Attorney,
Thomas R. Ragatz, Special Assistant County Attorney, Owatonna, Minnesota, for
appellant.
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and
Daniel J. Koewler, Charles A. Ramsay, Ramsay Law Firm, P.L.L.C., Roseville, Minnesota,
for respondent.
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Alethea M. Huyser, Assistant Solicitor General, Michael
Everson, Assistant Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for amicus curiae Minnesota
Attorney General.
Teresa Nelson, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and
Bruce Jones, Peter M. Routhier, Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for
amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
________________________
1
SYLLABUS
1. Under Birchfield v. North Dakota, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016), the
Fourth Amendment does not allow the State to prosecute respondent for violating Minn.
Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2 (2014), for refusing the blood test requested of him.
2. Because the intrusion into respondent’s privacy interests is greater than the
government’s need for a urine sample, a warrantless urine test does not fall within the
search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
3. Because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule is a rule of
evidence and respondent does not challenge the admission of any evidence, the good-faith
exception does not apply.
4. Because respondent cannot be prosecuted under the Fourth Amendment for
refusing to consent to an unconstitutional search, Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2, which
criminalizes an arrestee’s refusal to take a warrantless blood or urine test, is
unconstitutional as applied.
Affirmed.
OPINION
GILDEA, Chief Justice.
The question presented in this case is whether Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2 (2014)
(“test refusal statute”), is constitutional as applied to respondent Ryan Mark Thompson.
After Thompson was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired and refused
warrantless blood and urine tests, he was charged with and convicted of test refusal.
2
Thompson moved to dismiss the test refusal charge, arguing that the statute was
unconstitutional, but the district court denied his motion. On appeal, the court of appeals
reversed. State v. Thompson, 873 N.W.2d 873, 880 (Minn. App. 2015). Because we
conclude that the test refusal statute is unconstitutional as applied to Thompson, we affirm.
Around 1:00 a.m. on April 13, 2012, an Owatonna police officer watched patrons
as they left a bar in Owatonna at closing time. The officer saw a vehicle, which police later
determined Thompson was driving, jump the curb and then stop quickly before reversing
and leaving the parking lot. As the vehicle turned onto the street outside the bar, it cut the
corner short and crossed the center line. The officer initiated a traffic stop.
When the officer approached the vehicle, Thompson provided the driver’s license
of a female passenger in the vehicle. Thompson informed the officer that he did not have
his license with him, but the officer was eventually able to identify Thompson by his name
and date of birth. The officer noticed “an overwhelming odor” of alcohol coming from the
vehicle while he spoke with Thompson, and saw that Thompson had “watery and glassy
eyes.” Thompson maintained that he had consumed only one beer.
After Thompson failed standardized field sobriety tests and a preliminary breath
test, the officer placed Thompson under arrest for driving while impaired, and transported
him to the Steele County Detention Center. There, officers gave Thompson a telephone, a
telephone book, and a directory of attorneys he could contact. Thompson left a voicemail
with one attorney and told the officer that he had finished attempting to contact an attorney.
After the officer read the Minnesota Implied Consent Advisory to Thompson, the officer
3
asked Thompson to submit to a blood or urine test. Thompson refused both tests, and when
asked why, stated “[f]or the fact that I don’t think I’ve been prosecuted properly.”
The State subsequently charged Thompson with one count of second-degree test
refusal, Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 2, 169A.25 (2014); one count of third-degree
driving while impaired, Minn. Stat. §§ 169A.20, subd. 1(1), 169A.26 (2014); one count of
obstruction of legal process, Minn. Stat. § 609.50, subds. 1(2), 2(3) (2014); and one count
of driving over the centerline, Minn. Stat. § 169.18, subd. 1 (2014). Thompson moved for
dismissal of the test refusal charge, arguing that the application of the test refusal statute to
him violated his substantive due process rights and the doctrine of unconstitutional
conditions. Relying on our decision in State v. Bernard, 859 N.W.2d 762 (2015), aff’d sub
nom. Birchfield v. North Dakota, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016), the district court
held that the statute was constitutional. Thompson then waived his right to a jury trial and
other trial rights, and the parties agreed to a stipulated-facts trial under Minn. R. Crim.
P. 26.01, subd. 4, on the test refusal charge. The State dismissed the other charges. The
district court found Thompson guilty of test refusal.
The court of appeals reversed Thompson’s conviction, concluding that charging an
individual with test refusal violates a fundamental right because a warrantless search of a
driver’s blood or urine does not qualify under an exception to the warrant requirement and
the test refusal statute is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest.
Thompson, 873 N.W.2d at 878, 880. We granted the State’s petition for review.
On appeal, the State argues that the test refusal statute was constitutionally applied
to Thompson because a warrantless search of his blood or urine would have been
4
constitutional as a search incident to a valid arrest.1 In the alternative, the State argues that
even if a warrantless search violates the Fourth Amendment, we should nevertheless
uphold Thompson’s conviction under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
We address each argument in turn.
I.
We turn first to the State’s contention that the test refusal statute is constitutional as
applied to Thompson. Under the test refusal statute, “[i]t is a crime for any person to refuse
to submit to a chemical test of the person’s blood, breath, or urine under section 169A.51
(chemical tests for intoxication), or 169A.52 (test refusal or failure; revocation of license).”
Minn. Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2. Minnesota law also provides that “[a]ny person who
drives . . . a motor vehicle within this state . . . consents . . . to a chemical test of that
person’s blood, breath, or urine for the purpose of determining the presence of alcohol, a
controlled substance or its metabolite, or a hazardous substance” and authorizes law
enforcement to request that a driver submit to a chemical test of their blood, breath, or urine
in certain circumstances. See Minn. Stat. § 169A.51, subd. 1 (2014).
The State contends that a warrantless search of an arrestee’s urine, conducted after
the suspected drunk driver is in police custody, is constitutional under the Fourth
Amendment as a search incident to a valid arrest. Because an arrestee has no right to refuse
a constitutional search, the State argues, the test refusal statute is constitutional as applied
1
In its initial brief, the State, citing Maryland v. King, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1958,
1969 (2013), also argued that we should uphold warrantless blood and urine tests under a
general reasonableness analysis. The State abandoned this argument following the
Supreme Court’s decision in Birchfield, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 2160.
5
to Thompson. For his part, Thompson maintains that a warrantless urine search does not
qualify as a search incident to a valid arrest and that the test refusal statute
unconstitutionally criminalizes the assertion of the right to be free from unreasonable
searches. The constitutionality of a statute presents a question of law that we review de
novo. In re Welfare of M.L.M., 813 N.W.2d 26, 29 (Minn. 2012).
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees “[t]he right of
the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
U.S. Const. amend. IV; see also Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. The “touchstone” of the Fourth
Amendment is reasonableness. United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118 (2001). When
law enforcement seeks to conduct a search to uncover evidence of criminal wrongdoing,
reasonableness typically requires law enforcement to obtain a judicial warrant before
conducting the search. Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995) (citing
Skinner v. Ry. Labor Execs.’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 619 (1989)); see also Riley v. California,
___U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2482 (2014) (“Such a warrant ensures that the inferences to
support a search are drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged
by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.” (citation
omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Searches conducted without a warrant,
“outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se
unreasonable . . . subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated
exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). The exception at issue here
is the search-incident-to-arrest exception. See, e.g., Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at
2483-84 (discussing the search-incident-to-arrest exception).
6
While this case was pending before our court, the United States Supreme Court
decided Birchfield, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 2160. In Birchfield, the Court considered the
search-incident-to-arrest exception in analyzing the constitutionality of the application of
North Dakota’s and Minnesota’s test refusal statutes to warrantless breath and blood tests.2
Specifically, the Court considered how one of the “established and well-delineated”
exceptions to the warrant requirement, a search performed incident to a valid arrest, applied
to breath and blood tests of drivers arrested for drunk driving. ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct.
at 2174-76, 2188. The Court noted that in United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235
(1973), it had previously “repudiated ‘case-by-case adjudication’ of the question whether
an arresting officer had the authority to carry out a search of the arrestee’s person” and
reaffirmed that “[t]he permissibility of” a search incident to an arrest “does not depend on
whether a search of a particular arrestee is likely to protect officer safety” or lead to the
discovery of evidence that could be destroyed. Birchfield, ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at
2176. The Court reaffirmed “Robinson’s categorical rule” in Riley, ___ U.S. at ___,
134 S. Ct. at 2484, and further explained how the rule should be applied in “situations that
could not have been envisioned when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Birchfield,
___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2176.
The Court in Birchfield applied the test used in Riley to determine whether breath
and blood tests of suspected drunk drivers qualified as searches incident to a valid arrest,
2
In 2013, North Dakota adopted a law similar to Minnesota’s test refusal statute that
makes it a crime for a driver to refuse to submit to a test of their blood, breath, or urine to
determine their alcohol concentration or the presence of other drugs. Birchfield, ___ U.S.
at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2170; see also N.D. Cent. Code § 39-08-01(1)–(3) (2016).
7
balancing “ ‘the degree to which [breath and blood tests] intrud[e] upon an individual’s
privacy and . . . the degree to which [breath and blood tests are] needed for the promotion
of legitimate governmental interests.’ ” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2176 (quoting
Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2484). To assess the intrusion upon individual privacy,
the Court considered three factors: (1) the extent of the physical intrusion upon the
individual to obtain the evidence; (2) the extent to which the evidence extracted could be
preserved and mined for additional, unrelated private information; and (3) the extent to
which participation in the search would enhance the embarrassment of the arrest. Id. at
___, 136 S. Ct. at 2176-77. The Court then proceeded to balance these considerations
against the government’s “great” need for alcohol concentration testing. Id. at ___,
136 S. Ct. at 2178-84.
Applying this framework, the Court upheld our decision in Bernard, 859 N.W.2d
762, holding that “the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to
arrests for drunk driving.” Birchfield, ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2184. The court
concluded that breath tests have only a “slight” impact on individual privacy. Id. at ___,
136 S. Ct. at 2184. A blood test, however, due to its “significantly more intrusive” nature,
may not be “administered as a search incident to a lawful arrest for drunk driving” and
requires a warrant absent the existence of exigent circumstances. Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at
2185.3
3
The State does not argue that exigent circumstances are present in this case.
8
Thompson refused both a blood and a urine test. Birchfield is dispositive with
respect to the blood test that Thompson refused. A warrantless blood test may not be
administered as a search incident to a lawful arrest of a suspected drunk driver. See also
State v. Trahan, No. A13-0931, slip op. at 13 (Minn. filed Oct. 12, 2016) (holding that test
refusal statute was unconstitutional as applied to a driver prosecuted for refusing a
warrantless blood test). The Court in Birchfield did not address whether warrantless urine
tests were constitutional under the search-incident-to-arrest exception. But Birchfield
presents the appropriate framework for us to analyze the constitutionality of Minnesota’s
test refusal statute as it applies to warrantless urine tests.4
4
Thompson argued, and the court of appeals held, that the test refusal statute was
unconstitutional as applied to Thompson using a substantive due process analysis.
Specifically, the court of appeals held that charging an individual with test refusal
implicates a fundamental right because a warrantless search of the driver’s blood or urine
would not have been constitutional under an exception to the warrant requirement, and that
the test refusal statute is not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest.
Thompson, 873 N.W.2d at 879-80. In Birchfield, the Court did not examine whether
criminalizing the refusal to submit to an unconstitutional search violated the Due Process
Clause. Instead, the Court’s conclusion that the warrantless blood test violated the Fourth
Amendment was dispositive. ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2184. The Court has followed
this method of analysis in other cases as well. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S.
833, 842 (1998) (“ ‘[W]here a particular Amendment provides an explicit textual source of
constitutional protection against a particular sort of government behavior, that
Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide
for analyzing these claims.’ ” (quoting Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 273 (1994))); see
also Camara v. Mun. Ct., 387 U.S. 523, 534, 540 (1967) (recognizing “a constitutional
right” to insist that home inspectors obtain a search warrant for an otherwise unreasonable
search, “and that appellant may not constitutionally be convicted for refusing to consent”).
9
A.
We turn first to the impact urine tests have on individual privacy interests,
considering, as the Court did in Birchfield, the level of physical intrusion, the ability of the
State to retain a sample containing other personal information, and the enhanced
embarrassment a urine test is likely to cause during an arrest.
1.
The State argues that although the breath test upheld in Birchfield as a search
incident to a valid arrest involved a “negligible” physical intrusion into an arrestee’s bodily
integrity, a urine test “need not involve any physical intrusion.” Such a test neither
“ ‘require[s] piercing the skin’ ” nor “extract[ing] a part of the subject’s body.” Birchfield,
___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2178 (quoting Skinner, 489 U.S. at 625). For his part,
Thompson argues that a urine test intrudes upon an individual’s privacy interest. This
intrusion, however, is not a physical one, and so we address this aspect of Thompson’s
argument later in our analysis.5
With respect to the physical intrusion portion of the analysis, we agree with the State
that urine tests do not implicate many of the physical intrusion concerns the Court discusses
in Birchfield’s analysis of blood tests. The administration of a urine test does not involve
an intrusion beneath the surface of the skin, and urine is arguably “not part of [the human]
bod[y],” given that urination is a “natural process” that would occur “sooner or later . . .
5
Thompson and amicus American Civil Liberties Union note that urine testing can
involve the taking of a urine sample through forced catheterization. The State concedes
this point, but this case does not involve that type of forced urine sample.
10
even without the test.” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2177. In terms of physical intrusion,
therefore, a urine test is more similar to a breath test than a blood test. Cf. id. at ___,
136 S. Ct. at 2176-77 (discussing the minimal invasiveness of a breath test).
2.
Although urine tests resemble breath tests in terms of a lack of physical
intrusiveness, the fact that a urine test “places in the hands of law enforcement authorities
a sample that can be preserved and from which it is possible to extract information beyond
a simple [alcohol concentration] reading” makes urine tests comparable to blood tests.
Birchfield, ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2178. Indeed, Thompson argues, there is an even
greater risk associated with urine samples, as they can “contain additional metabolites and
other types of ‘highly personal information’ that will never appear in a blood sample.”
Regardless of whether urine samples contain more information than blood samples,
the logic in the Court’s analysis of blood tests applies with equal force to urine tests. A
breath test, as the Court noted, is capable of revealing only one thing in the hands of law
enforcement: an individual’s blood-alcohol concentration. Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2177.
Urine tests, on the other hand, can be used to detect and assess a wide range of disorders
and can reveal whether an individual is pregnant, diabetic, or epileptic. See Skinner,
489 U.S. at 617. Moreover, no breath sample remains after a breath test, see Birchfield,
___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2177. But that is not true with respect to a urine test. Even
when law enforcement is prohibited from using the collected urine samples for purposes
other than alcohol concentration testing, “the potential [for abuse] remains and [the test]
may result in anxiety for the person tested.” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2178. The taking of
11
a urine sample, therefore, raises the same privacy concerns that the Court addressed in
Birchfield with regard to blood tests.6
3.
With respect to the third part of the analysis, Thompson, citing the Supreme Court’s
discussion in Skinner, contends that urine tests cause considerably more embarrassment for
arrestees than breath tests. See 489 U.S. at 617 (“ ‘There are few activities in our society
more personal or private than the passing of urine. Most people describe it by euphemisms
if they talk about it at all. It is a function traditionally performed without public
observation; indeed, its performance in public is generally prohibited by law as well as
social custom.’ ” (quoting Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. Von Raab, 816 F.2d 170, 175
(5th Cir. 1987))). The State, on the other hand, argues that participation in a urine test need
not involve any embarrassment nor an invasion of privacy, and that even if the test does
implicate some privacy rights, arrestees have a diminished expectation of privacy once they
are validly placed under arrest.
Urine tests for law enforcement purposes, regardless of how they are administered,
implicate significant privacy interests. See Skinner, 489 U.S. at 617 (“[T]he process of
collecting the sample to be tested, which may in some cases involve visual or aural
6
The State contends that the retention of urine samples is comparable to the
warrantless DNA collection that the Court upheld in King, ___ U.S. at ___, 133 S. Ct. at
1969. The buccal swab of an arrestee’s inner cheek in that case was “reasonable” given
the arrestee’s diminished expectation of privacy and the “brief intrusion” of the swab. Id.
at ___, 133 S. Ct. at 1979. The Court, however, went on to stress that it was not
“suggest[ing] that any search is acceptable solely because a person is in custody.” Id. at
___, 133 S. Ct. at 1979. Moreover, the warrantless search in King was not upheld as a
search incident to a valid arrest, and as a result, King is inapposite to our analysis here.
12
monitoring of the act of urination, itself implicates privacy interests.”). When an arrestee
submits to a urine test on suspicion of drunk driving, the arrestee must urinate, on
command, “in full view” of the arresting officer, who must witness the arrestee “void
directly into the bottle.” Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Forensic Sci. Lab., Urine
Collection Kit Instructions for Arresting Officer (2011), https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/bca/
bca-divisions/forensic-science/Documents/Urine%20Specimen%20Collection%20Instruc
tions.pdf. Because the participation in a urine test involves “a substantial invasion beyond
the arrest itself,” case law suggests that such a test cannot be justified as a search incident
to an arrest. See Riley, ___ U.S. at ___, 134 S. Ct. at 2488.
In urging us to uphold the urine test as a valid search incident to arrest, the
Minnesota Attorney General, as amicus on behalf of the State, contends that the
“[p]rovision of a urine sample is not materially different from other full-body searches
conducted incident to arrest.” Similarly, the State asserts that the Court has long
recognized body searches as valid when conducted incident to an arrest. But a search that
involves an arrestee performing a personal and private bodily function “in full view” before
law enforcement implicates privacy concerns in ways that even a thorough full-body search
does not. Compared to blood testing, which does not involve an arrestee performing a
private bodily function in front of law enforcement, urine testing involves a much greater
privacy invasion in terms of embarrassment. This factor therefore strongly indicates that
urine testing implicates weighty privacy concerns.
In sum, in terms of the impact on an individual’s privacy, a urine test is more like a
blood test than a breath test. Specifically, although a urine test does not require a physical
13
intrusion into the body in the same way as a blood test, urine tests have the potential to
provide the government with more private information than a breath test, and there can be
no question that submitting to a urine test under the watchful eye of the government is more
embarrassing than blowing into a tube.
B.
On the other side of the balancing analysis, we consider the State’s asserted need to
obtain alcohol concentration readings through urine tests to prevent drunk driving. In
Birchfield, the Court reiterated the state and federal government’s “paramount interest” in
preserving public-highway safety. ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2178. The Court further
stated that the government’s interest is not satisfied by simply removing suspected drunk
drivers from the road through a lawful arrest because the government has a compelling
interest in deterring drunk driving so individuals do not pose a threat to others in the first
place. Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2179. Nor is the government’s interest served in full, the
Court reasoned, by authorizing administrative license revocation penalties that are
“unlikely to persuade the most dangerous offenders.” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2179.
The reasonableness of a particular type of test to determine alcohol concentration
depends, however, on the “availability of [] less invasive alternative” tests. Id. at ___,
136 S. Ct. at 2184. In concluding that the government interest in obtaining alcohol
concentration readings through warrantless blood tests was diminished, the Court stressed
that the government “offered no satisfactory justification for demanding the more intrusive
alternative [test]” when a breath test, a reasonable search incident to a valid arrest, would
typically serve the government’s needs. Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2184. In situations in
14
which a breath test would not serve the government’s interest, “[n]othing prevents the
police from seeking a warrant” for an alternative test “when there is sufficient time to do
so, . . . or from relying on the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement
when there is not.” Id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. 2184.
Although Birchfield addressed the availability of breath tests as an alternative to
warrantless blood tests, the same logic applies with equal force to warrantless urine tests.
Breath tests, validly performed incident to an arrest, will serve the State’s interest in
deterring drunk driving and preserving highway safety. The availability of an alternative
test impacts the reasonableness of urine tests just as it does blood tests. The State here
presents no justifications for warrantless urine tests other than those the Court considered
and rejected in Birchfield in the context of blood draws. See Birchfield, ___ U.S. at ___,
136 S. Ct. at 2184 (rejecting the justification for warrantless blood tests based on a breath
test’s inability to detect controlled substances because the “police have other measures at
their disposal when they have reason to believe that a motorist may be under the influence
of some other substance”); id. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2184-85 (addressing the availability of
alternative forms of testing for arrestees unable to perform a breath test and concluding that
there is “no reason to believe that such situations are common in drunk-driving arrests, and
when they arise, the police may apply for a warrant if need be”). Accordingly, despite the
State’s “great” need for alcohol concentration testing, the availability of a less-invasive
breath test weighs against the reasonableness of requiring the more revealing and
embarrassing urine test absent a warrant or exigent circumstances.
15
Based on our analysis, we hold that a warrantless urine test does not qualify as a
search incident to a valid arrest of a suspected drunk driver. Such tests significantly intrude
upon an individual’s privacy and cannot be justified by the State’s interests given the
availability of less-invasive breath tests that may be performed incident to a valid arrest.
II.
If we conclude that the warrantless blood or urine test would have been
unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, the State argues that Thompson is still not
entitled to relief because of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, which we
adopted in State v. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d 863 (Minn. 2015).7 The State argues that
because the arresting officer objectively relied in good faith on binding appellate precedent
in choosing not to obtain a warrant in Thompson’s case, we should decline to suppress
evidence of Thompson’s test refusal and uphold his conviction.
We considered and rejected this precise argument in Trahan, No. A13-0931, slip op.
at 11-12. As was the case in Trahan, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule has
no application because Thompson has not sought to exclude any evidence the State wants
to use against him. For the reasons we set out in Trahan, the State’s good-faith exception
argument fails.
7
The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not require the suppression
of illegally obtained evidence when the evidence is obtained in “ ‘reasonable reliance’ ” on
“ ‘binding appellate precedent’ ” that “ ‘specifically authorizes a particular police
practice’ ” at the time of the search. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 869 (quoting Davis v. United
States, 564 U.S. 229, 241 (2011)).
16
III.
Having concluded that conducting a blood or urine test without a warrant violates
the Fourth Amendment, the question remains whether Thompson can be prosecuted for
refusing to submit to an unconstitutional search.8 In Birchfield, the Court held under the
Fourth Amendment that North Dakota could not prosecute the driver in that case for
refusing to submit to an unconstitutional blood test. ___ U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 2186.
We reach the same conclusion here and hold that Thompson cannot be prosecuted for
refusing to submit to an unconstitutional warrantless blood or urine test, and that Minn.
Stat. § 169A.20, subd. 2, is unconstitutional as applied.9
Affirmed.
CHUTICH, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MCKEIG, J., not having been a member of this court at the time of submission, took
no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
8
At oral argument, the State asked us to limit the retroactive application of this ruling
to cases pending on the date of this decision. Because the State raised the issue of the
retroactive application of our ruling for the first time at oral argument, we need not decide
this issue. See State v. Morrow, 834 N.W.2d 715, 724 n.4 (Minn. 2013).
9
Because we hold that the test refusal statute is unconstitutional under the Fourth
Amendment, we need not address Thompson’s alternative arguments that the statute
violates the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions and his Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination.
17