U.S. Supreme Court ruling on blood tests in DWI cases must apply to some past cases in N.J., high court says

As seen in this article, “In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police officers generally must obtain a search warrant to take blood from suspected drunken drivers.

Now, New Jersey’s Supreme Court says that the decision must apply not only to any future case or case that’s currently open in the state but also retroactively to those that hadn’t been decided when the ruling was issued two years ago.

Peter Verniero, the former state Supreme Court Justice and state Attorney General, said many courts across the country for years had given police the right to take blood in suspected DWI cases without a warrant because ‘the dissipating nature of blood-alcohol content levels’ created an emergency circumstance. In other words, officers were allowed to get results quickly because alcohol dissipates relatively quickly in blood.”