High court rules certain DUI arrests unlawful

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SANDPOINT — A state law which enables Idaho law officers to make warrantless arrests of motorists for driving under the influence when the offense occurred outside of their presence has been ruled unconstitutional by the Idaho Supreme Court.

The March 23 ruling from the state's top bench conforms with a 2019 ruling in a misdemeanor battery case out of Kootenai County, which held that the Idaho Constitution prohibits a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor offense that occurred outside the presence of the arresting officer.

The latest ruling was issued in the case of a Bonner County woman who successfully contested the suspension of her driver's license by the Idaho Transportation Department following her arrest for driving under the influence by Ponderay Police in 2019, according to court documents.

Jasmine Krystal Reagan was arrested by Cpl. Jeremy Deal, who was acting on a citizen's report that Reagan was driving erratically and appeared to be intoxicated, court records indicate.

Although Deal did not witness the erratic driving, Reagan was arrested at her home after she failed field sobriety tests, according to court records.

Reagan's counsel, Sandpoint attorney Fred Palmer, appealed his client's license suspension in 1st District Court. Judge Barbara Buchanan reversed the suspension, holding that Reagan's arrest was illegal because the officer did not personally witness the alleged misconduct and therefore needed a warrant to put her into handcuffs.

Buchanan's ruling also nullified the evidence ITD relied upon to support the license suspension.

The state appealed Buchanan's reversal of the license suspension and the high court addressed whether the court's ruling in the Kootenai County battery case also applied to the Bonner County DUI case.

Supreme Court Justice Gregory Moeller concluded that it did, according to the 15-page opinion. Moeller ruled that the framers of the Idaho Constitution did not intend to allow warrant arrests for certain misdemeanor committed outside their presence.

"In short, because there was no exception at the time of Idaho's statehood to the warrant requirement for misdemeanors committed outside an officer's presence, public policy must yield to constitutional considerations," Moeller wrote.

However, Moeller further held that Reagan's detention during the DUI investigation was valid and a breath test would have been permissible prior to her arrest.

"Here, however, the officer did not just detain Reagan prior to the breathalyzer test, but he unlawfully arrested Reagan before administering the test," Moeller said in the opinion.

Chief Justice G. Richard Bevan concurred, as did justices Roger Burdick, Robyn Brody and John Stegner.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and followed on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.