The South Dakota Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a drunk driver who killed two adults and injured a young girl. Now a state prison inmate, the driver says Highway Patrol troopers should have obtained a warrant before asking for a blood draw. The state says a warrant is not necessary when a chaotic crime scene doesn’t allow time to get a warrant, and the high court agrees.
The facts of this case are not in dispute. At about two in the morning on July 1, 2017, a white pickup truck and a black Subaru collide near the Brandon exit on I-90. Two adults, a man and a woman, are thrown from the Subaru and killed. An 11-year-old girl, trapped in the back seat, is alive but injured.
A bleeding man with no shirt or shoes is seen by witnesses standing at the side of the road. That same man is soon after reported as being at a nearby hotel seeking help.
A state Highway Patrolman, Patrick Bumann, arrives at the hotel and gets certain information from the man, who keeps losing consciousness and is soon taken by ambulance to a hospital. Bumann also goes to the hospital and there asks staff to draw blood from the injured man before he goes into surgery.
Sioux Falls attorney Nichole Carper represents that injured man, Joshua Vortherms, at oral arguments in October. Carper says Trooper Bumann should have obtained a warrant before getting blood from Vortherms. She says Bumann had probable cause as soon as he saw Vortherms at the hotel.
“Joshua is shirtless. He has pants on, one shoe, blood all down the front of him, holding his shirt up to his head to staunch the bleeding of a pretty good head cut.”
Carper says Bumann and other law enforcement officers had time enough to get a warrant. But Assistant Attorney General Brigid Hoffman tells justices that Bumann didn’t realize he was running out of time to get a warrant until he arrived at the hospital.
“Going into the emergency room, he learned that Vortherms had lost a lot of blood and would be going into surgery, and it is at this point that his investigation becomes an exigency.”
Hoffman says Bumann knew that blood alcohol content dissipates with time, and that medical treatments such as IVs, medications, and blood transfusions can taint blood samples.
The high court upholds the trial judge’s decision not to suppress blood evidence. Justices note they don’t apply hindsight in reviewing the reasonableness of an officer’s conduct, but rather consider the conditions officers faced at the time.