Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J, and Kennedy, Breyer, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH DAKOTA
To fight the serious harms inflicted by drunk drivers, all States have laws that prohibit motorists from driving with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeding a specified level. … To help secure drivers’ cooperation with such testing, the States have also enacted “implied consent” laws that require drivers to submit to BAC tests. … Over time, however, States have toughened their drunk-driving laws, imposing harsher penalties on recidivists and drivers with particularly high BAC levels. Because motorists who fear these increased punishments have strong incentives to reject testing, some States, including North Dakota and Minnesota, now make it a crime to refuse to undergo testing. … The state trooper who arrested petitioner Danny Birchfield advised him of his obligation under North Dakota law to undergo BAC testing and told him, as state law requires, that refusing to submit to a blood test could lead to criminal punishment. Birchfield refused to let his blood be drawn and was charged with a misdemeanor violation of the refusal statute. He entered a conditional guilty plea but argued that the Fourth Amendment prohibited criminalizing his refusal to submit to the test. The State District Court rejected his argument, and the State Supreme Court affirmed. …
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The officer who arrested petitioner Steve Michael Beylund took him to a nearby hospital. … Beylund agreed to have his blood drawn. The test revealed a BAC level more than three times the legal limit. Beylund’s license was suspended for two years after an administrative hearing, and on appeal, the State District Court rejected his argument that his consent to the blood test was coerced by the officer’s warning. The State Supreme Court affirmed.
Held:
… The Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving but not warrantless blood tests. Pp. 13–36.
….
… The analysis begins by considering the impact of breath and blood tests on individual privacy interests. Pp. 20–23.
… Breath tests do not “implicat[e] significant privacy concerns.” Skinner, 489 U. S., at 626. The physical intrusion is almost negligible. The tests “do not require piercing the skin” and entail “a minimum of inconvenience.” Id., at 625. …
… The same cannot be said about blood tests. They “require piercing the skin” and extract a part of the subject’s body, Skinner, supra, at 625, and thus are significantly more intrusive than blowing into a tube. A blood test also gives law enforcement a sample that can be preserved and from which it is possible to extract information beyond a simple BAC reading. …
….
…The analysis next turns to the States’ asserted need to obtain BAC readings. Pp. 23–33.
…By making it a crime to refuse to submit to a BAC test, the laws at issue provide an incentive to cooperate and thus serve a very important function. Pp. 23–25.
… As for other ways to combat drunk driving, this Court’s decisions establish that an arresting officer is not obligated to obtain a warrant before conducting a search incident to arrest simply because there might be adequate time in the particular circumstances to obtain a warrant. …
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… Because the impact of breath tests on privacy is slight, and the need for BAC testing is great, the Fourth Amendment permits warrantless breath tests incident to arrests for drunk driving. … 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. Pp. 33–35.
… Motorists may not be criminally punished for refusing to submit to a blood test based on legally implied consent to submit to them. It is one thing to approve implied-consent laws that impose civil penalties and evidentiary consequences on motorists who refuse to comply, but quite another for a State to insist upon an intrusive blood test and then to impose criminal penalties on refusal to submit. There must be a limit to the consequences to which motorists may be deemed to have consented by virtue of a decision to drive on public roads. Pp. 36–37.
… The North Dakota Supreme Court, which based its conclusion that Beylund’s consent was voluntary on the erroneous assumption that the State could compel blood tests, should reevaluate Beylund’s consent in light of the partial inaccuracy of the officer’s advisory. Pp. 37–38.
No. 14–1468, 2015 ND 6, 858 N. W. 2d 302, reversed and remanded; No. 14–1470, 859 N. W. 2d 762, affirmed; No. 14–1507, 2015 ND 18, 859 N. W. 2d 403, vacated and remanded.