In 2005, Matthew P. Underwood was pulled over, placed under arrest, and read the statutory implied consent warning. Underwood consented to drug and alcohol testing but later moved to suppress the unfavorable results at trial. The trial court granted Underwood’s suppression motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment.1 We granted the State’s petition for certiorari to answer the following question:Did the Court of Appeals err in affirming the grant of a defendant’s motion to suppress the results of a State-administered breath test where an officer who had probable cause to arrest a defendant for DUI read the implied consent rights of OCGA § 40-5-552 to the defendant but arrested the defendant . . . for a non-DUI offense. See Hough v. State , 279 Ga. 711, 715 2 a 620 SE2d 380 2005We have determined that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s grant of the motion to suppress. Accordingly, we now reverse. The following facts are undisputed. In 2005, Underwood was pulled over as a suspect in a hit-and-run incident. Underwood displayed obvious signs of intoxication, and a crack pipe fell out of his glove compartment as he was searching for his insurance card to show to the investigating officer. As the officer was putting Underwood in handcuffs, Underwood inquired whether he was under arrest. The officer responded that he was and mentioned two potential charges: hit-and-run and possession of illegal drug paraphernalia. The officer did not explicitly advert to any DUI charges at that precise moment, but shortly thereafter, he read Underwood the statutory implied consent warning, which is replete with references to DUI.3 Underwood consented to be tested for drugs and alcohol in his system, and the results showed that he had a blood-alcohol concentration of .161, well above the legal limit.
The State eventually charged Underwood with reckless driving, two drug offenses, and two counts of DUI, and Underwood filed a motion to suppress the results of the drug and alcohol testing. Underwood argued that the results were not admissible under the implied consent law because at the time the implied consent warning was read, he had not been “arrested for any offense arising out of acts alleged to have been committed in violation of” the DUI statute.4 Underwood seized on the arresting officer’s mention of the crimes of possession of illegal drug paraphernalia and hit-and-run as he was placing Underwood in handcuffs as proof that he was “arrested for” those crimes and not for a violation of the DUI statute.
