Siers v. Weber

2014 SD 51, 851 N.W.2d 731, 2014 WL 3671030, 2014 S.D. LEXIS 71
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 23, 2014
Docket26823
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2014 SD 51 (Siers v. Weber) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Siers v. Weber, 2014 SD 51, 851 N.W.2d 731, 2014 WL 3671030, 2014 S.D. LEXIS 71 (S.D. 2014).

Opinion

GILBERTSON, Chief Justice.

[¶ 1.] Petitioner and Appellant Donovan Siers filed a petition for habeas corpus alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. The petition asserted that counsel in Si-ers’s driving under the influence conviction failed to properly advise Siers of the constitutionality of blood evidence taken incident to lawful arrest but without Siers’s consent. The State moved to dismiss the petition for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The habeas court granted the motion, but issued a certificate of probable cause regarding whether Missouri v. McNeely, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 1552, 185 L.Ed.2d 696 (2013), should be given retroactive effect in South Dakota. We affirm the habeas court’s ruling and hold that McNeely is not given retroactive effect.

FACTS

[¶ 2.] Appellant Donovan Siers filed an amended petition for habeas corpus in May 2013. Siers’s petition alleged the following: 1

[¶ 3.] Siers was arrested in Minnehaha County for driving under the influence of alcohol in May 2008. Siers refused to give a blood sample to police. He was subsequently placed in restraints and his blood was drawn without his consent and without police attempting to obtain a warrant. The blood sample was analyzed and showed Siers to have had .22 percent by *734 weight of alcohol in his blood. The blood sample was the primary evidence supporting Siers’s conviction for driving under the influence. Siers pleaded guilty to the offense, and was later convicted and incarcerated for felony failure to appear arising from the driving under the influence conviction. Siers was represented by two attorneys from the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office. Siers asserted in his habeas petition that the attorneys failed to fully and correctly advise Siers regarding the constitutionality of the seizure of blood evidence. Siers’s petition further alleged that failure of counsel to properly advise Siers was a violation of his due process rights and that the evidence would have been suppressed and the charges against him dropped had his attorneys challenged the introduction of the blood test evidence.

[¶ 4.] At the time of Siers’s arrest, South Dakota case law indicated that the destruction of blood alcohol evidence by natural dissipation in the body constituted an exigent circumstance in a driving under the influence arrest, allowing for a blood draw without a warrant. However, the United States Supreme Court subsequently held in Missouri v. McNeely that the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not present a per se exigent circumstance justifying nonconsensual blood testing in all driving under the influence arrests. — U.S. at -, 133 S.Ct. at 1563. Siers cited McNeely before the habeas court to support his petition.

[¶ 5.] The State filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. A hearing on the motion was held in August 2013. At the hearing, Siers argued that counsel in his driving under the influence conviction should have advised him of the constitutionality of blood evidence taken incident to arrest but without his consent, and that McNeely should be given retroactive effect. Siers also presented statistical evidence that retroactive application would not be disruptive to the judicial system. The habeas court held that McNeely should not be applied retroactively to his habeas petition, and therefore granted the State’s motion to dismiss. However, the habeas court issued a certificate of probable cause to allow Siers to appeal two McNeely-related issues to this Court. On appeal, this Court is asked to determine whether McNeely created a new rule of constitutional law and whether McNeely should be given retroactive application to final convictions in South Dakota. 2

STANDARD OF REVIEW

[¶ 6.] “A habeas corpus applicant has the initial burden of proof to establish a colorable claim for relief.” Steiner v. Weber, 2011 S.D. 40, ¶ 4, 815 N.W.2d 549, 551 (quoting Jenner v. Dooley, 1999 S.D. 20, ¶ 11, 590 N.W.2d 463, 468). “Habeas corpus can only be used to review (1) whether the court had jurisdiction of the crime and the person of the defendant; (2) whether the sentence was authorized by law; and (3) in certain cases whether an incarcerated defendant has been deprived of basic constitutional *735 rights.” Id. (citation omitted). “Although we ordinarily review a habeas court’s fact findings under the clearly erroneous standard, when, as here, the circuit court receives no evidence but grants the State’s motion to dismiss as a matter of law, our review is de novo and we give no deference to the circuit court’s legal conclusions.” Id. (citation omitted).

ANALYSIS AND DECISION

[¶ 7.] 1. Whether Missouri v. McNeely announced a new rule of constitutional law.

[¶ 8.] Our analysis of whether the decision in a particular case is given retroactive effect begins with a determination of whether the decision issues a “new rule” of constitutional law, or whether the case simply restates an “old rule.” If the decision simply restates an old rule, the rule should be applied retroactively. See Cowell v. Leapley, 458 N.W.2d 514, 518 (S.D.1990). “[B]y definition, without a new rule, there is no change in the law and the question of retroactivity is immaterial.” Larsen v. Sioux Falls Sch. Dist. No. 4-9-5, 509 N.W.2d 703, 706 (S.D.1993) (quoting United States v. Bowen, 500 F.2d 960, 975 (9th Cir.1974)). In this case, Siers argues that the habeas court erred in determining that McNeely constituted a new rule of constitutional law. Siers asserts that McNeely merely restated the rule laid down in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966). Accordingly, Siers asks this Court to remand to the habeas court to allow Siers to argue that his trial counsel was ineffective by failing to argue that Schmerber prohibited the introduction of the blood evidence used in this case.

[¶ 9.] In Schmerber, the defendant was at a hospital receiving treatment for injuries suffered in an automobile accident when police arrested the defendant for driving under the influence. Id. at 758, 86 S.Ct. at 1829. At the direction of a police officer, the defendant’s blood was drawn without a warrant or the defendant’s consent and analysis of the blood was used in the State’s case against him. Id. at 758-59, 86 S.Ct. at 1829. The Supreme Court upheld the warrantless blood test because the officer “might reasonably have believed that he was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, threatened the destruction of evidence!;.]” Id. at 770, 86 S.Ct. at 1835 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2014 SD 51, 851 N.W.2d 731, 2014 WL 3671030, 2014 S.D. LEXIS 71, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/siers-v-weber-sd-2014.