In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has decided that officers can perform a blood test on an unconscious DUI suspect without a warrant.
The precedent-setting decision sprouted from a Wisconsin case in which Gerald Mitchell, a DUI suspect, was tested after he'd been knocked out in a crash.
As reported by NBC:
Tipped off by a neighbor who feared Mitchell had driven away in a van, apparently drunk and suicidal, police arrived to find him belligerent and unsteady on his feet. After putting him in a holding cell, they decided to take him to a hospital, where they directed medical personnel to draw his blood. It showed an alcohol level of .22, far above Wisconsin's legal limit of .08. When he was charged with drunken driving, he argued that the blood test violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches because police did not get a warrant and he was incapable of consenting to the blood draw.
Wisconsin state courts ruled against him, the Supreme Court then upheld those rulings.