Utah justices back driver, reject off-site sobriety test

The Utah Supreme Court ruled Friday that a suspected drunken driver who was stopped in a remote canyon and taken to an off-duty officer's home for sobriety tests was illegally detained.

In a 4-1 decision, the court said the detention violated Mitchell Worwood's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

The result: The sobriety tests can't be used, and the case likely will be dismissed when returned to 4th District Court in Nephi, his attorney predicted.

"They now have very little if any evidence," Scott Card said.

On June 20, 2003, an off-duty Utah Highway Patrol trooper encountered Worwood standing by a truck that was partially blocking a dirt road up Deep Canyon near Levan, about 80 miles south of Salt Lake City.

Worwood then got into the truck to pull it to the side of the road, and the officer, Korey Wright, stopped.

He didn't identify himself, but Wright said Worwood "knew who he was" because they come from the same small community in Juab County.

Wright said he smelled alcohol and found Worwood's speech slurred, so he told him he should be checked by an on-duty trooper.

Wright drove Worwood to the off-duty officer's house, where another officer, Kevin Wright, gave sobriety tests and arrested the man.

A judge upheld the arrest and the evidence. Worwood, who had prior alcohol-related offenses, eventually pleaded guilty but was not sentenced while the case was appealed.

The Supreme Court said the off-duty officer's suspicion was reasonable, but the rest of the detention exceeded the constitutional bounds of an investigative stop.

"We are doing all we can to keep drunk drivers off the road. We think the officer acted reasonably here," Assistant Attorney General Fred Voros said in a statement. "Unfortunately the record was a little sparse in this case."

And it's that missing information that Associate Chief Justice Michael Wilkins noted in his dissent.

He said there could have been safety concerns or other factors that led to Wright's decision to move Worwood down the canyon. But even without knowing those factors, Wilkins believes the off-duty officer acted properly.

The four justices in the majority said the benefits of throwing out the evidence outweighed the social costs. Wilkins, however, said driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is the greater social evil at issue.

Worwood also had an alcohol-breath test. It was not part of the appeal but still can't be used against him, Card said.

The Supreme Court's decision was the second recent defeat for police in disputes over evidence.

In March, the court said the odor of burning marijuana didn't justify a search of a trailer in Carbon County without a warrant. Wilkins, too, was the lone dissenter in that ruling.