Schoenbeck, a lawyer from Watertown and a former Day County state’s attorney, said he was convinced to support the change after seeing statistics from the Rapid City area. He said former Rapid City police chief Tom Hennies worked hard for the change while in the state House of Representatives.

The South Dakota Supreme Court didn’t have any choice in applying the federal McNeely decision to stop warrantless blood draws, Schoenbeck said. Currently Schoenbeck is unopposed for election in November to the state House. He said the attorney general and Public Safety would need to take the lead on fashioning any change to South Dakota’s law.

Some law enforcement units are already using telephonic search warrants “which are way easier with modern communications,” Schoenbeck said.

“They call it in, get the judge’s approval, and then do the paperwork afterwards. I believe it is recorded,” he said. “I was with an officer last night and he explained the ease of the process to me,” he continued. “We didn’t have all that technology back in the day.”

After the South Dakota Supreme Court’s ruling, Jackley issued a statement Thursday that in part offered his defense for the position he had taken that warrantless draws were still legal.

“The McNeely decision had not addressed the legality of the withdrawal of under an implied consent statute nor did it fully address what would constitute exigent circumstances to justify proceeding without a warrant,” Jackley said.

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