State v. Steadman

350 N.W.2d 172, 1984 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1172

• Court: Supreme Court of Iowa
• Decided: June 6, 1984
• Docket: 84-03
• Status: Published

Opinions

McCORMICK, Justice.

We granted discretionary review of a trial court order suppressing the results of a breath-alcohol test administered to defendant Robert Charles Steadman pursuant to the implied consent procedures in Iowa Code chapter 321B (1981). Defendant challenged the admissibility of the test result in consolidated prosecutions for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OWI) in violation of section 321.281 and for involuntary manslaughter in violation of section 707.5. The challenge was grounded on the State’s failure to preserve a sample of defendant’s breath for independent testing. In sustaining defendant’s motion, the trial court held that the State was required by the court’s decision in State v. Brown, 337 N.W.2d 507 (Iowa 1983), to preserve a breath sample for defendant’s subsequent testing and analysis. Because we hold that evidence of chemical test results obtained through chapter 321B implied consent procedures are not subject to suppression under the Brown decision, we reverse and remand.

The charges arose from an accident that occurred in Cedar Rapids on December 29, 1982, when an automobile driven by defendant struck and killed a pedestrian. An investigating police officer put defendant through several field sobriety tests. Defendant performed poorly on those tests and also flunked a field alcosensor test. The officer arrested him for OWI and transported him to the county jail.

At the jail, the officer invoked implied consent procedures. Defendant consented to furnish a breath specimen, and a deputy sheriff administered a breath test using an Intoxilizer Model 4011A. The intoxilizer records the alcohol content of deep lung air and purges the sample into the atmosphere at the completion of a three-stage testing cycle. The device performs a calculation based on a fixed ratio of alcohol in lung air to alcohol in the blood and reports the result as a blood alcohol reading. In this case the test showed a blood alcohol level of .143 percent by weight. Defendant was not advised of his right to have an independent chemical test, and he did not notify the officers of his desire to have one.

The General Assembly has expressly provided for admissibility of chapter 321B test results in any civil or criminal action “arising out of acts alleged to have been committed by any person while operating a motor vehicle in violation of section 321.-281.” Iowa Code § 321B.28 (1983). It has also specifically addressed the admissibility issue when the defendant does not obtain an independent test:

The person may have an independent chemical test or tests administered in addition to any administered at the direction of a peace officer. The failure or inability of the person to obtain an independent chemical test or tests does not preclude the admission in evidence of the results of the test or tests taken at the direction of the peace officer.

§ 321B.15 (§ 321.4 in the 1981 Code). No basis exists in these provisions for creating an affirmative duty in the officer to preserve or offer to preserve a sample of the specimen tested when the defendant does not notify the officer of a desire for an independent test. At issue here is whether this affirmative duty is nevertheless imposed on the officer by a defendant’s constitutional right to due process. If this duty exists, we do not believe it depends on the device or method employed by the State to test the defendant’s blood alcohol level in a particular case. We assume without deciding that the defendant in this case sufficiently invoked his rights under the due process clause in article I, section 9 of the Iowa Constitution and the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution.

The Brown case, relied on by the trial court in suppressing the test result, was an involuntary manslaughter prosecution in which suppression of blood alcohol test results was upheld on due process grounds because of the State’s failure to preserve a blood specimen in unusual circumstances. Implied consent procedures were not employed in Brown. The defendant had not been placed under arrest, and the officer did not believe he had probable cause to charge the defendant with OMVUI. 337 N.W.2d at 508. The officer requested a blood sample for alleged “medical” rather than “legal” purposes, and the rigorous foundational requirements of chapter 321B were not followed. Id. By obtaining the evidence outside chapter 321B, the State deprived the defendant of the protections afforded by the adversary implied consent procedures.

Undergirding Brown was a recognition of the built-in safeguards in chapter 321B. In imposing the duty to preserve a sample for independent testing in the circumstances disclosed by the record in that case, the court distinguished chapter 321B procedures:

The chapter 321B procedures were adopted to protect the integrity of the enforcement process and the interests of the State and defendant. While we find no evidence of manipulation in this instance, it would be imprudent to open the door to wholesale frustration of the legislature’s intent.

337 N.W.2d at 512.

This court compared and contrasted the foundational requirements of chapter 321B with general foundational requirements for admissibility of intoxication test results in Henkel v. Heri, 274 N.W.2d 317, 319-22 (Iowa 1979). The court has recognized that an important purpose of the stringent chapter 321B requirements is to guarantee the reliability and accuracy of test results. See State v. Schlemme, 301 N.W.2d 721, 723 (Iowa 1981). Exclusion of test results has been mandated when chapter 321B requirements affecting test reliability and accuracy have not been satisfied. See, e.g., State v. DeBerg, 288 N.W.2d 348, 350 (Iowa 1980) (failure to show syringes and needles were factory wrapped and disposable); State v. Smith, 272 N.W.2d 859, 860-62 (Iowa 1978) (absence of testimony showing effect of anti-coagulant); State v. Richards, 229 N.W.2d 229, 233-34 (Iowa 1975) (absence of showing of timely written request of defendant); State v. Wallin, 195 N.W.2d 95, 98 (Iowa 1972) (absence of written request and failure of syringe and needle to meet statutory requirements); State v. Shelton, 176 N.W.2d 159, 161 (Iowa 1970) (failure to show nurse had been designated by licensed physician to withdraw blood and to establish use of syringe required by statute).

In addition to imposing unique foundation requirements in implied consent cases by statute, the legislature has delegated to the commissioner of public safety the responsibility to approve devices and methods used to obtain a specimen of breath or urine. § 321B.15. In carrying out this responsibility, the commissioner has approved the intoxilyzer 4011A and requires that the operator “shall proceed in accordance with the instructions contained in the operator’s manual for such device, or instructions furnished by the Iowa department of public safety criminalistic laborato-ry_” 680 I.A.C. 7.2(1). We have given the laboratory checklist procedures the same force and effect as the statutory foundation requirements. See State v. Hershey, 348 N.W.2d 1 (Iowa 1984) (requirement that subject be observed to assure no smoking, eating or drinking for 15 minutes before breath test is administered).

The test result in Brown was not accompanied by the assurances of reliability and accuracy provided when implied consent procedures are used. This did not alone make the evidence inadmissible because chapter 321B authorizes the introduction of evidence of intoxication from sources other than tests conducted pursuant to chapter 321B. See § 321B.36. The holding in Brown was designed to protect the defendant in view of the lesser assurance of reliability and accuracy of test results when chapter 321B procedures are not employed. Those procedures strike a balance between the public interest in effective and efficient law enforcement and the rights of the individual. They are calculated to promote the reliability and accuracy of the State’s chemical test while providing the defendant with the right to have an independent test if the defendant chooses. The fact that the General Assembly might have stricken the balance differently by imposing an affirmative duty on the officer to preserve or offer to preserve a sample for testing in every case or in some cases does not make the statutory procedures fundamentally unfair.

Under Brown a defendant establishes a due process violation based on the State’s failure to preserve a sample for testing when the defendant shows (1) a proper request for the evidence, (2) its materiality in the constitutional sense, and (3) an unavoidable possibility the destroyed evidence would be favorable to the defendant. See 337 N.W.2d at 509. The second and third prongs of the Brown inquiry are inap-posite in the context of chapter 321B tests. The statutory assurances of reliability and accuracy negate the per se materiality of the sample in the constitutional sense and nullify any “unavoidable possibility” that a preserved sample would produce a test result favorable to the accused. Suppression is warranted on due process grounds in chapter 321B cases if a sufficient showing is made under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), but not under the expansive interpretation of Brady in such cases as Garcia v. District Court, 21st Judicial District, 197 Colo. 38, 589 P.2d 924 (1979).¹ See Brown, 337 N.W.2d at 510.

Our conclusion is like that of the Kansas court in State v. Young, 228 Kan. 355, 362-63, 614 P.2d 441, 446-47 (1980):

In Kansas we believe the statutes ... provide proper safeguards to assure reasonably accurate test results and to enable the accused, on request, to secure any additional chemical test by a physician of his or her own choosing, which the accused may desire....

Under the safeguards built into [the Kansas implied consent statute], the failure of the State to automatically furnish an accused with a sample of his own breath for independent testing is not a denial of due process.

Lack of an independent test does not leave a defendant defenseless. Drunk driving cases have been defended successfully for years through use of traditional trial resources including cross-examination and extrinsic evidence that east doubt on the reliability and accuracy of particular test results. Extrinsic evidence on the issue was adduced in the suppression hearing in this case. Machine accuracy, testing procedures and compliance with foundational requirements are always open to question. See generally Imwinkelried, A New Era in the Evolution of Scientific Evidence — a Primer on Evaluating the Weight of Scientific Evidence, 23 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 261 (1981). The evidence is powerful but not conclusive.

We hold that the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions do not require suppression of blood alcohol test results obtained through chapter 321B implied consent procedures for failure of a peace officer to preserve a sample of the specimen tested when the defendant did not notify the officer of a desire for an independent test.

In the present case, no suggestion exists that chapter 321B procedures were not satisfied, and no due process violation under the Brady standard has been established. Suppression was ordered solely on the theory that the State is required under Brown to preserve a sample for independent testing in all cases. Because Brown does not apply in implied consent cases and no other basis for suppression has been demonstrated, the suppression order is reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

All Justices concur except SCHULTZ, J., and REYNOLDSON, C.J., who concur specially and CARTER and WOLLE, JJ., who dissent.

1 . Cases following Garcia include Municipality of Anchorage v. Serrano, 649 P.2d 256 (Ct.App. Alaska 1982); Baca v. Smith, 124 Ariz. 353, 604 P.2d 617 (1979); People v. Trombetta, 142 Cal.App.3d 138, 190 Cal.Rptr. 319 (1983), cert. granted, — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 696, 79 L.Ed.2d 163 (1984). Contrary holdings include State v. Young, 228 Kan. 355, 614 P.2d 441 (1980); Montoya v. Metropolitan Court, 98 N.M. 616, 651 P.2d 1260 (1982).