•  
  •  
 

Authors

Tyler M. Ludwig

Abstract

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution requires police officers to obtain a warrant before conducting a search of an individual. However, doing so is not always possible, and courts have created exceptions to this requirement in order to deal with pragmatic limitations. The need for these exceptions has often been presented to the United States Supreme Court in the context of obtaining blood alcohol concentration (“BAC”) tests from drivers suspected of driving under the influence. In Mitchell v. Wisconsin, the Supreme Court dealt with a new problem in this area: drawing blood from a suspected drunk driver who was unconscious. The Court ruled that in virtually all such instances, police may permissibly order a blood draw without first obtaining a warrant. The Court reasoned that such situations generally fall within the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, which allows for warrantless searches to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence.

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.