MADISON, Wis. (CN) — A majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded Thursday it was permissible for prosecutors to subpoena a hospital for blood test results in a drunken driving case after separate test results obtained by police the same night were suppressed in court because the officer who took the driver’s blood did so without a warrant.
In 2017, Daniel Van Linn was found by ambulance personnel and a sheriff's deputy bleeding in a yard near where he had crashed his car into a tree and a cabin. The deputy smelled alcohol and later discovered through a background check that Van Linn had four prior DUI convictions, meaning he was subjected to a reduced .02% blood alcohol content under state law.
Van Linn admitted to drinking “a couple beers” but denied involvement in the accident. Later, at the hospital, medical personnel drew his blood for general diagnostic purposes, but the deputy also arrested Van Linn for a fifth-offense DUI and, citing exigent circumstances, took a separate blood sample without a warrant. Crime lab results eventually showed Van Linn’s blood alcohol content far exceeded the legal limit.
An Oconto County Circuit Court judge tossed the officer’s warrantless blood test results. When prosecutors subpoenaed the hospital three months later for Van Linn’s medical records, including the separate test results, Van Linn unsuccessfully tried to quash the state’s subpoena and pleaded no contest.
A Wisconsin appeals court affirmed the circuit court’s decision not to quash the subpoena. Arguments were held at the Wisconsin Supreme Court in October, leading to Thursday’s 6-1 decision in favor of the state.
Writing for the majority, Justice Rebecca Dallet repeated her assertion made at arguments that the hospital’s test results are admissible in court because the source the state got them from is adequately unrelated to the illegal test results, which protects the hospital results from Fourth Amendment exclusion under a rule known as the independent-source doctrine.
The doctrine holds that evidence otherwise tainted by illegal activity can be brought in court as long as the state acquires the same evidence—or “rediscovers” it—in a legally sound way.
Dallet felt the state satisfied the doctrine’s requirements by using a subpoena to get evidence it knew would show Van Linn was drunk months after its own evidence was deemed unconstitutional, in part because Van Linn was so obviously drunk that the deputy had a reasonable basis to arrest him for DUI prior to the illegal blood test.
“Stated differently, the state’s decision to subpoena Van Linn’s medical records was not prompted by what it learned from the deputy’s unlawful blood draw,” Dallet wrote.
Dallet deflected the argument that the state only used the subpoena to circumvent its own test results being suppressed. She countered that the circuit court suppressing the illegal test results “remedied the police misconduct in this case,” and since the state’s subpoena was technically unconnected to police misconduct, the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule does not apply to it.
“The fact that the state subpoenaed [the hospital records] only after the circuit court suppressed the deputy’s unlawful blood draw does not change the independent nature of the state’s suspicions that Van Linn’s BAC was over the legal limit,” Dallet concluded.
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who voiced concern about the state’s tactics at arguments, remained unconvinced in a dissenting opinion on Thursday.
“Providing the state with an insurance policy in the event of an unconstitutional search, the majority tells law enforcement not to worry,” she wrote. “The majority’s message is: ‘If you violate a person’s Fourth Amendment rights and the resulting evidence is suppressed, there will be no consequences because you can still gain the information through other means.’”
“In contrast, my message is: ‘get a warrant,’” Bradley said, adding that “this court should not promote a search first and warrant later approach” incompatible with the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule and encouraging law enforcement to clean up illegally gained information by looking for it in another place.
Andrew Hinkel, the public defender who argued on behalf of Van Linn in October, could not be immediately reached for comment on the high court’s ruling.
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