PHOENIX (AP) - The Arizona Supreme Court has upheld the drunken driving conviction of a woman who argued a warrantless blood draw taken during her 2015 arrest should have been thrown out because police coerced her into providing the evidence.
The court said Monday that authorities had implicitly conceded Courtney Noelle Weakland’s blood draw wasn’t voluntary, but still ruled it remains as evidence because officers acted on a good-faith belief that their actions were legal.
Weakland argued the standard guidance read by police to suspects in such situations misstated that the law requires arrestees to submit to the tests.
The state has since changed the language of the guidance.
The Supreme Court rejected Weakland’s argument that the good-faith exception didn’t apply at the time because the law on the matter wasn’t settled.
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