DUI Law That Allows Warrantless Blood Draw Held Unconstitutional

A Pennsylvania law allowing police to request that hospital personnel draw a patient’s blood, because they have probable cause to believe the patient was intoxicated when involved in an automobile accident, is facially unconstitutional, the state supreme court said.

The state law that allows blood draws without a warrant “is clearly, plainly, palpably, and indeed facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice David N. Wecht said Tuesday for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

This isn’t the first time the court has addressed police officers’ obtaining blood draws without obtaining a warrant first. In Pennsylvania v. Thuey, the court said in 2020 that a warrant is necessary for a blood draw unless the driver is unconscious or unable to consent to the draw. Conversely, in this case, the court said that the statute that authorizes blood draws without a warrant is unconstitutional.

Section 3755 of the state’s vehicle code runs afoul of both the Fourth Amendment and the Pennsylvania Constitution, Wecht said. He rejected the arguments that exigent circumstances—such as the alcohol dissipating in the bloodstream—or the state’s implied consent law saved Section 3755.

Pennsylvania State Troopers responded to a one-car accident in June 2021. When they arrived, they saw the badly damaged car and a debris field that included fentanyl patches and alcohol containers. First responders were already working on the two occupants, who were thrown from the car, Wecht said.

The driver, Larry Hunte, smelled like alcohol and told the EMTs he’d been drinking, the court said, and his passenger, Mary Staggs, died from her injuries.

One trooper stayed at the scene, while the other went to the hospital with Hunte, who was unconscious. Unable to get a waiver for a blood draw, the trooper requested one under Section 3755. Two search warrants were later obtained to take possession of the sample and to test it.

Hunte was charged with vehicular homicide while driving under the influence and other crimes. Before trial, he moved to suppress the results of the the blood test.

Blood draws from unconscious drivers suspected of DUI cases almost always present exigent circumstances, Wecht said. But there’s no categorical rule that allows a blood draw without a warrant, he said. Instead, the analysis depends on the specific circumstances of each case, he said.

Pennsylvania argued that the blood draw here was valid because Hunte gave implied consent to the procedure by driving in the state. But Wecht said that implied consent laws can’t waive Fourth Amendment protections for the entire class of people who drive cars. Further, under US Supreme Court precedent, blood draws can’t be subject to a categorical exception from the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, he said.

The state also argued that Hunte’s blood draw was valid because the troopers got warrants after the draw. The later-obtained warrants are immaterial, Wecht said. “The constitutional problem is that the statute does not require a search warrant,” he said.

Section 3755 authorizes warrantless searches of blood in the absence of any legitimate exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, Wecht said. It’s therefore unconstitutional, he said.

Chief Justice Debra Todd and Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin M. Dougherty, and Daniel D. McCaffery joined the opinion.

Justice P. Kevin Brobson, joined by Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy, dissented, saying that Section 3755 can be validly applied to require hospital personnel to cooperate with a law enforcement request for a blood draw and give them protection from liability for doing so. But he concurred in the judgment because the state didn’t show by a preponderance of evidence that Hunte’s blood was constitutionally seized.

Mundy filed a separate opinion to stress that Section 3755 can be applied constitutionally. “The Majority identifies absolutely nothing unconstitutional, facially or otherwise, with the General Assembly’s grant of such immunity, but nonetheless affirms the trial court’s finding that Section 3755(b) is unconstitutional,” she said.

The Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office represented the state. Wagner & Spreha and Kairys Rudovsky Messing Feinberg & Lin LLP represented Hunte.

The case is Pennsylvania v. Hunte, 2025 BL 209608, Pa., No. 16 MAP 2023, 6/17/25.