State v. Nicholas L. Sparby-Duncan

Summary

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed an order denying Nicholas L. Sparby-Duncan’s motion to dismiss charges for failing to install an ignition interlock device and operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration. The court held that imposing criminal penalties for violating an ignition-interlock order and driving with a 0.02 prohibited alcohol concentration did not unconstitutionally penalize Sparby-Duncan’s earlier refusal to submit to a warrantless blood draw. The court distinguished those charges from criminal penalties imposed directly for the refusal under Birchfield, Dalton, and Forrett.

Holdings

1. The statutes are not unconstitutional as applied. Under Birchfield, Dalton, and Forrett, the State may impose civil consequences, including an ignition-interlock order, for refusing a warrantless blood draw, and it may impose criminal penalties for later violating that civil order or for later driving with a prohibited alcohol concentration. Those later charges are sufficiently attenuated from the prior refusal and do not criminally punish the exercise of the constitutional right to refuse the warrantless blood draw.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Wisconsin's statutes criminalizing failure to install an ignition interlock device and operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration are unconstitutional as applied because the defendant would not have been subject to the ignition-interlock order or 0.02 prohibited alcohol concentration absent his prior refusal to submit to a warrantless blood draw.

Disposition

affirmed