Pa. Supreme Court Strikes Down Hospital Blood-Draw Law After Crashes

In Commonwealth v. Hunte, decided June 17, 2025, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that Section 3755 of the Vehicle Code, which required emergency-room blood draws after certain crashes, is unconstitutional on its face because it allowed police to obtain blood without a warrant.

What Happened in the Hunte Case

On June 7, 2021, Pennsylvania State Police troopers investigated a severe single-vehicle crash in Cumberland County. A passenger who had been thrown from the vehicle later died of her injuries. A first responder told the troopers that the driver, Larry Hunte, had said he was driving and had been drinking, and a trooper noted that he appeared dazed and smelled of alcohol.

By the time a trooper reached Mr. Hunte at the hospital, he was unconscious. The trooper read him the DL-26B chemical test warnings and tried to get his consent to a blood draw. Because Mr. Hunte could not respond, the trooper took a different route. He filled out a hospital form titled "Certification of Request for Blood or Urine Alcohol Testing" and asked hospital staff to draw blood under Section 3755 of the Vehicle Code.

A phlebotomist drew two vials of blood at the trooper's request. This was separate from the blood the hospital had already drawn for medical treatment. The trooper did not have a search warrant, and Mr. Hunte did not consent. Troopers later obtained warrants to take custody of the vials and test them. The testing showed alcohol and controlled substances, and Mr. Hunte was charged with homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault while driving under the influence, along with other DUI and Vehicle Code offenses.

Mr. Hunte asked the Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas to suppress the blood results. That court agreed. It declared Section 3755 unconstitutional, suppressed the results and dismissed the charges that depended only on the blood sample. Because a trial court had struck down a state statute, the Commonwealth appealed directly to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

What Section 3755 Required

Section 3755 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 3755, applied when a person needed emergency-room treatment after a motor vehicle accident and police had probable cause to believe the crash involved DUI. In that situation, the emergency-room physician or a designee had to promptly draw blood samples. If police could not tell who was driving, the law reached every injured occupant who could have been the driver. The samples had to be sent for testing within 24 hours, and the results were released on request to the person tested, their attorney or physician, or government officials, including police. The statute also gave doctors, staff and hospitals immunity for complying and generally barred them from refusing.

In short, Section 3755 allowed a blood draw based on probable cause alone, with no warrant, no consent and no right to say no.

Why the Supreme Court Struck It Down

In an opinion by Justice Wecht, four justices (Chief Justice Todd and Justices Donohue, Dougherty and McCaffery) affirmed the trial court. Justices Mundy and Brobson each concurred in part and dissented in part. The majority's reasoning came down to a few points:

A blood draw is a search. It pierces the skin and takes bodily material, so the Fourth Amendment applies. A warrantless search is presumed unreasonable unless an exception applies.
"Implied consent" is not an exception. The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in Missouri v. McNeely, Birchfield v. North Dakota and Mitchell v. Wisconsin did not treat a statute's declaration that drivers have consented as a substitute for real, voluntary consent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed that a statute cannot supply consent the Constitution does not recognize.
Section 3755 required no warrant and no exception. The statute mandated the draw on probable cause alone and did not ask whether a warrant could be obtained or whether an emergency existed in the particular case.
Other lawful routes do not save the statute. The Commonwealth argued that police could get a warrant or that exigent circumstances might exist. The Court said a facial challenge looks at the searches the statute actually authorizes. A search justified by a warrant or an emergency rests on that independent authority, not on Section 3755. Warrants obtained after the draw to seize and test the vials did not cure the initial intrusion.

The Court held Section 3755 facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Because federal Fourth Amendment rulings set the minimum protection under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the statute violates the state constitution too. The Court left for another day whether the state constitution gives greater protection than the federal one. It also held that the immunity provision in subsection (b) could not stand without subsection (a), so the whole section fell.

What This Means If You Were Hurt in a Crash and Police Suspect DUI

If you were taken to a hospital after a crash and police got your blood without a warrant, the way it was obtained now matters a great deal. After Hunte, a trooper cannot rely on Section 3755 as authority for a warrantless draw. The Commonwealth would need another lawful basis, such as a warrant, voluntary consent or a case-specific emergency.

A careful defense review looks at questions like these:

Who asked for the blood draw, and was a form such as a "Certification of Request for Blood or Urine Alcohol Testing" used?
Was there a search warrant before the blood was drawn, or only after?
Were you conscious, and did you actually consent after hearing the DL-26B warnings?
Was the blood drawn for medical treatment first and obtained by police afterward, or drawn at police request?
Can the Commonwealth show a real emergency that made it impractical to get a warrant?

If the blood was taken without a valid legal basis, your attorney can file a motion to suppress the test results. In Hunte, the trial court suppressed the results and dismissed the charges that depended on them alone. Cases still turn on their own facts, and suppression of the blood does not end every case.

What the Ruling Does Not Mean

Hunte is an important win for Fourth Amendment protections, but it has limits:

It does not ban all hospital blood draws. Police can still obtain blood with a warrant, with voluntary consent, or when a genuine emergency makes a warrant impractical. The Court treated the Commonwealth's emergency argument as waived because it was not raised in the trial court. It added that a real emergency, or a warrant, would be a separate source of legal authority, not an application of Section 3755.
It does not make DUI charges go away. Police can still rely on driving behavior, statements, field observations and other evidence.
It did not decide whether charges must be dismissed. The Commonwealth's challenge to the dismissal depended entirely on its argument that the statute was constitutional. Once that argument failed, the Court saw no need to address the dismissal separately.
The legislature can try again. The Court observed that lawmakers could enact a statute requiring a draw when an officer has a warrant or cannot obtain one under the circumstances, and could give medical staff immunity for complying.

The ruling also leaves the standard implied-consent process under Section 1547 in place. The Court treated the license suspension and the use of a refusal as evidence as a limited carve-out recognized by federal law, and it did not disturb them. Because the case was decided on the statute's face, it reaches blood taken under Section 3755 in other cases too. The facts of each stop, crash and hospital encounter still determine what a court will do.

Talk to a DUI Defense Attorney

If you were charged with DUI after a crash and police obtained your blood at a hospital, the details of how it was taken may decide your case. Evidence that police collected in violation of the Constitution can be challenged, and the earlier a lawyer reviews the hospital records, the blood-draw paperwork and any warrant, the more options you may have.

The Zuckerman Law Firm defends clients charged with DUI, traffic offenses and other criminal matters in Western Pennsylvania. Call us at 412-447-5580 today.