La. R.S. § 32:661 Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcoholic Beverages Or Illegal Substance Or Controlled Dangerous Substances; Implied Consent to Chemical Tests; Administering of Test and Presumptions

• Library: Louisiana Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current with changes from the 2023 Legislative Session
• Year: 2023
• Citation: La. R.S. § 32:661

A.

(1) Any person, regardless of age, who operates a motor vehicle upon the public highways of this state shall be deemed to have given consent, subject to the provisions of R.S. 32:662, to a chemical test or tests of his blood, breath, urine, or other bodily substance for the purpose of determining the alcoholic content of his blood, and the presence of any abused substance or controlled dangerous substance as set forth in R.S. 40:964 in his blood if arrested for any offense arising out of acts alleged to have been committed while the person was driving or in actual physical control of a motor vehicle while believed to be under the influence of alcoholic beverages or any abused substance or controlled dangerous substance as set forth in R.S. 40:964.

(2)

(a) The test or tests shall be administered at the direction of a law enforcement officer having reasonable grounds to believe the person, regardless of age, to have been driving or in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon the public highways of this state while under the influence of either alcoholic beverages or any abused substance or controlled dangerous substance as set forth in R.S. 40:964. The law enforcement agency by which such officer is employed shall designate in writing and under what conditions which of the aforesaid tests shall be administered.

(b) In the case of all traffic fatalities, the coroner, or his designee, shall perform or cause to be performed a toxicology screen on the victim or victims of all traffic fatalities for determining evidence of any alcoholic content of the blood and the presence of any abused substance or controlled dangerous substance as set forth in R.S. 40:964 which shall include the extracting of all bodily substance samples necessary for such toxicology screen. The coroner, or his designee, shall be responsible for ensuring the body is not removed from his custody until such time as the bodily substance samples are extracted. The coroner's report shall be made available to the investigating law enforcement agency and may be admissible in any court of competent jurisdiction as evidence of the alcoholic content of the blood and the presence of any abused substance or controlled dangerous substance as set forth in R.S. 40:964 at the time of the fatality. The coroner, or his designee, shall determine, by the most current and accepted scientific method available, whether the presence of alcoholic content in the blood of the deceased is the result of pre-death ingestion of alcoholic beverages or the postmortem synthesis of ethanol. Nothing herein shall be construed to limit the authority of the investigating law enforcement agency from conducting an investigation of the accident scene concurrently with the coroner or his designee.