Request By:
Joe W. Weatherford
Chief of Police
City of Clinton
Clinton, Kentucky 42031
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Joe Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to this office, you stated that you have experienced difficulty with your request at a local hospital to draw blood for blood alcohol tests from persons charged with driving while intoxicated. You state that hospital officials will only draw blood for blood tests at the request of the Kentucky State Police.
KRS 186.565(3) provides for a show cause hearing why a license shall not be revoked for refusal of a suspect to submit to a blood, breath, urine, or saliva test for determining alcoholic content of his blood upon request of a law enforcement officer. This is Kentucky's Implied Consent Law.
KRS 189.520(7) provides:
Only a physician, registered nurse or qualified medical technician, duly licensed in Kentucky, acting at the request of the arresting officer can withdraw any blood of any person submitting to a chemical test under this section of KRS 186.565. (Emphasis added.)
KRS 189.520(8) states as follows:
The person tested shall be permitted to have a duly licensed physician of his own choosing administer a chemical test in addition to the one administered at the direction of the police officer.
Therefore, from the above statutes, it is clear that:
(1) Any arresting officer can request a blood alcohol test and it is not only the requests of the Kentucky State Police which must be honored. Requests of city and county law enforcement officers must also be honored.
(2) The suspect has the right to have his own test administered by his own physician in addition to the one conducted at the request of the arresting officer. It is only when a motorist refuses to submit to a test requested by a police officer that he has no right to have tests administered by a physician of his own choosing. Newman v. Hacker, Ky., 530 S.W.2d 376 (1975).
If we can provide any further information, please let us know.