If a motorist withdraws his consent to a blood test, a police officer may not take it by force under a ruling last week by the Idaho Court of Appeals. A divided three-judge panel decided that the blood evidence used against Brant Lee Eversole should have been suppressed.
Eversole was drunk when a local sheriff’s deputy caught him sitting behind the wheel of a truck in front of a bar. Yet Eversole could not have driven the truck because it was high-sided on a brick berm with the drive wheels lifted off the pavement. Two other men were trying to use a jack to free the vehicle, but they had next to no chance of succeeding. The police officer at the scene called their effort “feeble.” The truck had to be towed away. Continue reading “Idaho Limits Forced Blood Draws From Motorists”