TRENTON (AP) — New Jersey's Supreme Court is retroactively requiring that police have a search warrant before they can draw blood from a drunken driving suspect.

Members of the New Jersey Supreme Court Top row, L to R: Justice Lee A. Solomon; Justice Anne M. Patterson; Justice Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina; Judge Mary Catherine Cuff t/a; Front row, L to R: Justice Jaynee LaVecchia; Chief Justice Stuart Rabner; Justice Barry T. Albin
Members of the New Jersey Supreme Court Top row, L to R: Justice Lee A. Solomon; Justice Anne M. Patterson; Justice Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina; Judge Mary Catherine Cuff t/a; Front row, L to R: Justice Jaynee LaVecchia; Chief Justice Stuart Rabner; Justice Barry T. Albin (NJ Supreme Court)
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The state's highest court considered how to apply a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in an appeal from a man who was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in 2010 by West Deptford police.

Timothy Adkins' lawyer successfully convinced a lower court to suppress his blood results after the U.S. Supreme Court found police needed a warrant to get a blood sample except in emergency cases. An appeals court ruled against him.

The state Supreme Court sent the case back to the trial court to determine if an emergency existed and said the ruling applies retroactively to cases in the pipeline when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

 

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