Unreasonable search and seizure: It's an amendment meant to protect citizens from law enforcement searching their personal property without a warrant.
"If you test above what the legal limit, is which is .08, then you are presumed to be unable to operate your motor vehicle safely." That is the national limit, explained Olathe, Kansas, criminal defense attorney William David Langston.
But does a breathalyzer test during a suspected DUI count? Langston, who owns his own law firm in Kansas but works cases on both sides of the state line, said yes and no.
"What the justices said was that blowing into a machine is a small impairment or impingement on your personal right to privacy, but it is far outweighed by the benefit of the community to get someone who might be intoxicated off the road to save lives," he said.
SCOTUS Blog: Get a breakdown of this Supreme Court decision and what it means for you
So here's what the ruling said (as broken down by Langston). A breathalyzer is constitutional, a blood test is not if cops don't have a warrant from a judge. This is a big deal because there are cases in Kansas whose outcome could change based on this very constitutionality.
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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.
