Legal Question Emerges After Missouri DUI Summit

Legal Question Emerges After Missouri DUI Summit

Opponents of drunk driving in the great state of Missouri have a new ally in the fight on drinking and driving. International brewer, Anheuser-Busch, has teamed up with the Missouri Office of Prosecution Services to present a statewide course entitled "Guarding America's Roadways". The course, held for prosecutors and law enforcement officers, is designed as refresher course on changes to Missouri laws that impact drunk driving arrests and prosecution. One of these new laws is causing a great debate among those invited, and its impact could have huge consequences for Missouri's citizens.Earlier in the year, Missouri voted for and approved a new law who's aim was to "steer first-time offenders toward alcohol treatment programs instead of prison and to ensure that repeat offenders are punished severely." While the law was being drafted, some parties pushed for the inclusion of a provision that would have allowed local law enforcement to draw blood samples from suspected drunk drivers without a warrant. Conversely, that condition was not part of the law that was eventually approved.The law that did pass happened to contain an elimination of the exclusion that had in past had prohibited state police officers from drawing blood (for the purposes of testing) from suspects who refused. It is the belief of at least one Kansas City personal injury lawyer that the origination of confusion over the new law is previous Supreme Court rulings that support the drawing of blood after refusal and without a warrant. When you start speaking with some of the prosecutors involved in the summit, you get a whole new batch of reasons. In what some deem a divisive analysis of this change in law as well as previous Supreme Court decisions, Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson claims that, "There is a good number of people that believe that as of today ... upon the arrest of someone for driving while intoxicated or for drugs, you have the authority under the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to take that person and have a blood sample drawn even if they refuse." If this is the case, why did Missouri feel the need to change their law, asks a Kansas City personal injury lawyer. Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson has an answer for that one as well. "Many of us believe that the legislature did that for a reason, and that reason was to allow the warrantless drawing of blood from a person that you've arrested for driving while drugged or intoxicated," Richardson said. Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson has some unusual beliefs as to why blood tests are more sought after by prosecution in drunk driving cases. "{TV shows} convince everyone that we're always gonna have scientific evidence in every single criminal case we prosecute, which is largely untrue," claims Richardson. "So they're gonna compare you to that officer on the screen, who's actually an actor."Regardless of where you stand on the warrantless blood testing debate, this summit was put on with the good intentions of saving lives in Missouri and heavily dissuading repeat offenders according to a Kansas City Personal Injury attorney who was in attendance. "We have children," Beverage Distributor Joe Scheppers said. "We have relatives and loved ones out on the roads. Nobody wants to share the roads with inebriated, drunk drivers. It's not something anyone wants to be part of."

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