The district court in northwest Iowa recently granted the State’s Motion to Dismiss following a ruling suppressing the results of a blood test obtained through implied consent.
The drugged driving attorneys at GRL Law challenged the test results under Iowa Code section 321J.11, the state’s independent testing law.
The state trooper originally requested a urine sample. Our client agreed and also requested a blood sample. Under Iowa law, you can get an independent sample as long as you take the officer’s requested test.
Rather than obtain both a urine and blood sample, however, the trooper simply changed his request to blood. As a result, the State obtained its sample, but the driver never got an independent sample that he could preserve, test and offer in his own defense.
The remedy for a violation of section 321J.11 is suppression of the state’s test, which is exactly what happened here.
Without a test result, the State decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute the driver for OWI and dismissed the charge as a result.
We were also able to remove the test result revocation from our client’s driving record with the ruling.
That’s actually a double win!
