Expediting the Warrant Process
XI.
The typical process for obtaining approval for a warrant and drawing blood is time-consuming. In some cases, it can be two or more hours for an officer to complete the necessary forms, contact a judge, travel to the judge’s location, electronically submit the forms, receive the warrant approval, transport the offender to the location of the blood (19) draw, and wait for a phlebotomist to obtain the sample. Two promising strategies to reduce this time are implementing an expedited warrant process and a law enforcement phlebotomy program. While implementing both strategies together is ideal, implementing just one of these strategies can benefit and improve the impaired driving arrest process. For more information about implementing a law enforcement phlebotomy program, please visit NHTSA’s Law Enforcement Phlebotomy Toolkit. The terms “expedited warrant,” “electronic warrant,” and “e-warrant” are often used to describe a system that speeds up the process to obtain a warrant. These systems can be used for arrest warrants, search warrants, or both. For the purposes of this report, the term, “expedited warrant,” is used to cover all procedures used to facilitate the search warrant process for chemical testing in impaired driving cases. In general, expedited search warrant systems for impaired driving arrests enable law enforcement officers to request a warrant from a judge on any day and at any time, provide users with enhanced accessibility to obtain warrants (e.g., available on phones, tablets, and computers), and allow for quicker capture of blood and/or urine samples, thereby ensuring more accurate evidence. In 2018, the International Association of Chiefs of Police Highway Safety Committee passed a resolution supporting the use of expedited warrants in the fight against impaired driving. The resolution states that the IACP legislative supports the “Development, implementation, and engagement of eWarrant systems by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to prevent injury and death on our nation’s roadways”. NHTSA has many great resources, including a “Best Practices” Guide published in 2021 titled, “Practices for Implementing Expedited Search Warrant Programs for Obtaining Evidence from Impaired Drivers.” Please reference Addendum One to view an example of a Blood Search Warrant.
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Mothers Against Drunk Driving ®
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