Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-8410.
December 22, 2004.
Appeal from the District Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Mark I. Wood, Judge, Trial Court No. 4FA-01-2717 Cr.
Robert B. Downes, Downes, MacDonald, Levengood, for the Appellant.
Jason Gazewood, Assistant District Attorney, Fairbanks, and Gregg D. Renkes, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Stewart, Judges.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Mark Anthony Malin was convicted of driving while intoxicated. Malin, driving alone, lost control of his vehicle and embedded it in the Nenana depot of the Alaska Railroad. Malin was conscious when the police arrived, but he was injured, so the police summoned an ambulance to take him to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. At the hospital, Malin was treated by emergency room Doctor Brian Tansky. In the course of this treatment, Dr. Tansky directed that a sample of Malin's blood be drawn for testing. When this blood sample was tested for alcohol content, the test showed that Malin had a blood alcohol level of .176 percent. The State later relied on this test result to establish that Malin was driving while intoxicated.
Former AS 28.35.030(a) (2001).
While this was going on, the police — who were unaware that Malin's blood had been drawn and tested for medical purposes — went to a magistrate and obtained a search warrant authorizing them to draw a sample of Malin's blood for alcohol testing. A state trooper went to the hospital armed with this warrant, but when the trooper arrived, she discovered that Malin's blood had already been drawn and tested. Rather than draw another sample of Malin's blood, the hospital personnel simply released the results of the already-performed test to the trooper.
After Malin was charged with DWI, he filed a motion seeking suppression of the blood test result. Malin contended that the magistrate had had no authority to issue a search warrant for the sampling and testing of Malin's blood. Malin further contended that Dr. Tansky had not drawn Malin's blood sample for medical purposes, but rather had drawn and tested Malin's blood only because the police served the doctor with the warrant that ostensibly required him to perform these acts.
District Court Judge Mark I. Wood held an evidentiary hearing on these issues. Based on Dr. Tansky's testimony, as well as the testimony of two law enforcement officers involved in Malin's case, Judge Wood found that Dr. Tansky had acted independently of the police, and for medical purposes, when he decided to draw a sample of Malin's blood and to test it for alcohol content. That is, Judge Wood found that Malin's blood was not drawn pursuant to the search warrant.
On appeal, Malin continues to argue that his blood was illegally drawn and tested at the behest of the police, under the authority of the warrant. But in his brief to this Court, Malin completely ignores Judge Wood's finding that the sampling and testing were done at the direction of the treating physician for medical purposes. Judge Wood's finding is amply supported by the evidence, and we accordingly affirm that finding.
Malin argues in the alternative that, even if his blood was drawn and tested for medical purposes, the police acquired the test results illegally.
As we explained above, before the police were aware that Malin's blood had been drawn and tested at the hospital, the police obtained a search warrant authorizing them to draw a sample of Malin's blood. But when a state trooper arrived at the hospital to serve this warrant, she was informed that Malin's blood had already been drawn and tested. So instead of drawing another sample of Malin's blood, the hospital personnel simply released the result of the already-accomplished blood test to the trooper. Malin argues that this was a misuse of the search warrant.
Alaska law is settled that when the police learn that hospital personnel have already tested a suspect's blood for alcohol content, a court can validly issue a warrant requiring the hospital to release the results of the blood test to the police. See St. John v. State, 715 P.2d 1205, 1211 (Alaska App. 1986). But in Malin's case, the police were unaware that Malin's blood had already been tested, so instead of seeking a warrant that would authorize the hospital to release the blood test results, the police sought (and obtained) a warrant that authorized the seizure of a sample of Malin's blood.
Malin argues that, because the search warrant authorized the police to seize a physical sample of Malin's blood, the police were limited to a blood sample — and that, even if drawing another sample of Malin's blood might be redundant, the police were not authorized to deviate from the wording of the warrant by "seizing" the blood test result instead.
Judge Wood rejected this argument on two bases. First, he ruled that a warrant authorizing the physical seizure of blood for testing purposes inherently authorizes the seizure of blood test results if the police, when serving the warrant, learn that a blood sample has already been drawn and tested. Second, Judge Wood ruled that if the police had understood that their warrant might not authorize them to accept the test result in place of a physical sample of Malin's blood, they inevitably would have sought a second warrant that expressly authorized their seizure of the test result.
We agree with Judge Wood on both grounds. On the issue of inevitable discovery, see Meyers v. Anchorage, 838 P.2d 817, 818-19 (Alaska App. 1992).
For these reasons, the judgement of the district court is AFFIRMED.