Michigan Blood BAC Results Challenging the Search Warrant - get results suppressed and case dismissed by the judge

If you’re arrested for a DUI in Michigan, a police officer gets to select which of the three chemical tests you need to take to comply with the Implied Consent law. If you refuse the officer, he/she can obtain a warrant for a blood draw at a local medical facility. This then triggers the Implied Consent license sanctions, which I discuss in another section of this book. For now, let’s just look at how one can challenge a search warrant, which lead to a blood draw result. If successful, the result itself would not be admissible against you.

In Michigan, the standard to obtain a search warrant for a blood draw is probable cause that the person to be tested committed a DUI offense as outlined in the Motor Vehicle Code. Essentially an officer needs to piece together his observations, tests conducted and the circumstances to ask a judge or magistrate to sign an order to compel a blood draw. Without the probable cause, a warrant will not be issued, and if it is, and it is challenged, the results would not be admissible.

One piece of evidence commonly relied upon by the police to obtain a search warrant is a PBT result. Although not admissible at trial, it is admissible for purposes of justifying an arrest and seeking a warrant for a blood draw. Other factors would be statements by the Defendant about consumption of alcohol or drugs, observations by the police, and performance on field sobriety tests. Obtaining the video and audio from the incident is helpful in “challenging” these elements, which lead to the issuance of the warrant. If we can show that the puzzle, which was pieced together to get the search warrant doesn’t quite fit together than we stand a good chance of challenging the warrant.

It then becomes a situation where we all know the BAC level was potentially over the limit, but because of a technicality, it may not be admissible against you. This doesn’t mean your case is dismissed based on this, but the prosecutor would need to go forward without their most powerful piece of evidence, and may look to make a deal, or could get beat at a trial.