Michigan BAC Test Refusal & Forced Blood Draw

Answer: A chemical test refusal or implied consent refusal is when someone has been offered the officer's choice of a breath, a blood or urine test and the person has not properly complied, or as they say, “refused” that test. So if they flat-out refuse it and say, “No thank you, I'm not going to take your blood test, your breath test,” or if they try to take a test and the officer thinks they're not trying hard enough, they'll see that as a refusal. So after that, then they will go ahead and get a search warrant for the blood, or they'll attempt to do so.

And the paperwork will be filled out, an affidavit for a search warrant, which will then usually be faxed over to a magistrate or judge who often has woken up to look over the details of that to see if there's enough there to issue the search warrant, and then the search warrant is sent back to the officer who then will take the client to go get a blood draw done at a lot of different places—sometimes hospitals, sometimes we've seen it where they've done it right at the jail.

So, or in a mobile unit kind of place. So that's kind of the procedure then, once they've concluded that there's been refusal, then they ask for a search warrant, they get the search warrant and then they go obtain the blood.