In a decision one attorney in the case predicted could “open the floodgates” for similar challenges, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled that a trial judge may not impose a mandatory minimum sentence based on a DUI defendant’s refusal to submit to a warrantless blood test.
In a nonprecedential ruling in Commonwealth v. Kohli, a unanimous three-judge panel said such sentences run afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Birchfield v. North Dakota, which held that warrantless blood draws are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy and prohibited states from imposing criminal penalties on DUI suspects who refuse the tests.
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