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Louisiana Police to draw blood from drivers who refuse alcohol breath test

LOUISIANA - Police agencies across Louisiana this Labor Day weekend will be prepared to get court orders allowing them to draw blood from drivers they suspect of being impaired but who refuse to take the alcohol breath test, officials said.

It marks the expansion of a "no-refusal" program that appeared for the first time in the New Orleans area over Memorial Day.
Louisiana State Police is participating, as are myriad local law enforcement agencies, from the Jean Lafitte Police Department to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, as well as judges, according to the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.

Emergency medical technicians or nurses also will take part; they'll draw the blood from DWI suspects.

The commission is coordinating the Labor Day program using $1.2 million in federal grants. The grant money will cover overtime costs incurred by police agencies statewide for their officers' work in DWI programs, including sobriety checkpoints. Statewide, 75 police agencies are participating, according to the commission.

"The Labor Day crackdown will be active throughout the holiday, but we'll be especially vigilant during the high-risk nighttime hours, when impaired drivers are most likely to be on our roads," said State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmondson. "The bottom line is that if you're caught driving while intoxicated, you'll be placed under arrest."

Louisiana State Police Troop B said the policy will be in effect Friday through Monday in Jefferson, St. Charles, St. Bernard and St. John the Baptist parishes. Troop L, which patrols St. Tammany and neighboring parishes, also will participate.

Municipalities, including Kenner, Harahan, Covington, Mandeville and Slidell, are participating. So, too, are Causeway Bridge Police and the Crescent City Connection Police Department. Police agencies in Orleans and Plaquemines parishes are not participating, spokesmen said, and while the State Police will be conducting no-refusal in St. Bernard, the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office will not be participating.

People arrested on suspicion of DWI, whether because they fail a field sobriety test or they refuse to submit to testing, will be booked into jail. Under the program, officers must apply for search warrants from magistrates to get court orders for the blood, said Jefferson Parish Assistant District Attorney Norma Broussard.

Officers fax the warrant application to magistrates, who must determine from the affidavits whether the police have sufficient evidence to draw blood, she said.

If a warrant is signed, blood is drawn. In Jefferson Parish, emergency medical technicians from East Jefferson General Hospital will be on call to draw blood from suspects booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna, she said.

"I hope the word gets out," said Broussard, who oversees prosecutions in the parish courts for Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. "If you drink, don't drive. We will have the evidence we need to prosecute."

While no one wants impaired drivers on the road, the program raises some issues, said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Louisiana.

Esman fears that magistrates might not give warrant applications the individualized attention that is required. Meanwhile, no one has said what happens with the blood afterwards, she said.

"If you breathe into the tube and you're really not impaired, they don't have anything on you," Esman said. "But if they take your blood and let you go, they still have your DNA. So they can use it for some other purpose in the future? I mean, there are serious privacy considerations when they start taking your blood."

She also said the program does nothing to get drunken drivers off the road. Those people are already arrested and are in jail by the time officers begin seeking warrants, she said, meaning the program essentially seeks evidence used in the prosecution.

"If what they want is evidence so they can convict you of drunk driving, that's not getting drunk drivers off the road," Esman said. "That's something else. That's vindictiveness."

Broussard said the program is legal and constitutionally sound, supported by U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating to 1966. States such as Texas and Arizona already have such programs.

Nationally, 10,000 police agencies are participating this weekend, according to the state highway commission.

Jefferson Parish embarked on it in May for Memorial Day weekend, when Broussard said of the 32 people arrested on suspicion of DWI, three refused breath tests. The status of those three cases was not immediately available.

Troop L, meanwhile, arrested 29 people during the July 4 weekend, when "no refusal" also was in effect.

Broussard hopes that no-refusal will be in force every day.

"Think about it," she said. "This would really be a deterrent."