If you live in Austin, you have probably heard of "No-refusal" weekends or holidays. These are times when the Austin Police Department has decided to seek blood samples from every person arrested for DWI, such as New Year's Eve, Halloween and other "high party" times.
In order to get a blood sample, a police officer must submit an affidavit to the on-duty magistrate and ask the magistrate to issue a warrant for taking a sample of the blood of the arrested person. Since the person is already under arrest for DWI, it is usually easy to convince the magistrate to issue the warrant, unless there are problems with the case, such as a long delay between the stop on the street and the time the officer is asking for the warrant. One recent Texas case said that a long, unexplained delay that could have been as much as 25 hours or so was too long, and found the warrant to be invalid, so the blood test was thrown out. Other earlier cases have said shorter unexplained delays are OK. Every case is a little different and I always look to see if there is a problem in the timing that can help my client who has been arrested for DWI and forced to give a blood sample.
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