State v. Holly J. Grimslid, 2024AP954, 1/16/24, District IV (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity
COA holds that, even if officer’s actions denying the defendant’s request to use the bathroom while he waited to obtain warrant for a blood draw were unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, suppressing evidence of the blood draw is not a viable remedy.
Police stopped a vehicle driven by Holly Grimslid because its headlights were not illuminated and she turned without signaling. Grimslid told the officer that she had two drinks. After the officer observed that she spoke with slurred speech and smelled alcohol in the vehicle, he asked her to submit to field sobriety testing. Grimslid was unsteady on her feet and did not follow the officer’s directions. The officer then stopped field sobriety testing and arrested her for operating under the influence of alcohol. (¶¶ 2-3).
The officer placed Grimslid in his squad car and drove her to a hospital for a blood draw. Outside the hospital, the officer read to Grimslid the Informing the Accused form explaining that she would be subject to penalties if she refused to consent to a blood draw. Grimslid’s response was ambiguous, but the officer interpreted it as a refusal and applied for a warrant to draw her blood. (¶¶ 3-5).
While the officer prepared the affidavit in support of the warrant, Grimslid remained handcuffed in the squad car. She asked the officer to use the bathroom, to which he replied “not until I’m done.” Grimslid repeated her request to use the bathroom several times and the officer repeated that she needed to wait until “this process is done.” (¶ 6). The warrant was approved after 40 minutes.
The officer then escorted Grimslid to the hospital for a blood draw, but she was not allowed to use the bathroom. After her blood was drawn, Grimslid was transported to the jail, “where she was presumably allowed to use the bathroom.” (¶ 7). Grimslid moved to suppress the results of her blood because the officer acted unreasonably under the Fourth Amendment when he did not allow her to use the bathroom, which was denied by the circuit court. (¶ 10).
On appeal, Grimslid conceded police had reasonable suspicion to stop her vehicle, probable cause to arrest her, and that the warrant was valid. She argued, however, that the blood test results must be suppressed “based on the conditions that she was subjected to after she was seized” by the officer refusing to allow her to use a bathroom, and cited federal cases in support of her argument that the Fourth Amendment may be violated by unreasonable conditions of confinement. (¶ 17).
The Court assumed, without deciding, that the officer made the conditions of her confinement “objectively unreasonable” and “might constitute a Fourth Amendment violation.” (¶ 18). However, the Court found that Grimslid did not cite any authority for her argument that suppressing evidence in a criminal case is a viable remedy for unreasonable conditions of confinement, noting that the federal cases she cited addressed civil claims for monetary damages. (¶ 19). The Court also concluded that, even if suppression was a valid remedy, there was no connection between a Fourth Amendment violation and the evidence Grimslid sought to suppress: “[H]er blood was drawn pursuant to a lawful warrant, and the circuit court determined that there was no connection between denial of the request to use the bathroom and the blood draw,” which Grimslid did not challenge on appeal. (¶ 20).
