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83. Admissibility of test results. The result of a test is admissibleat trial if the court, after reviewing all the evidence, whethergathered prior to, during or after the test, is satisfied that probablecause exists, independent of the test result, to believe that theoperator was under the influence of intoxicants at the time of theaccident.29-A M.R.S. § 2522(3) (2018).[¶12] We review the constitutionality of a statute de novo as a matter oflaw. See State v. Nisbet, 2018 ME 113, ¶ 16, 191 A.3d 359. To establish that thestatute is unconstitutional on its face, it is Weddle’s burden to show that thereare “no circumstances in which it would be valid.” Conlogue v. Conlogue, 2006ME 12, ¶ 5, 890 A.2d 691; see Bouchard v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 2015 ME 50, ¶ 8,115 A.3d 92. It is a “heavy burden . . . since all acts of the Legislature arepresumed constitutional.” Bouchard, 2015 ME 50, ¶ 8, 115 A.3d 92 (quotationmarks omitted).[¶13] If probable cause were present here before the blood draw, in whatwere clearly exigent circumstances, or if the special needs doctrine applied, seeinfra ¶¶ 16-21, then we could avoid the constitutional issue and uphold themotion justice’s denial of the motion to suppress on other grounds. See, e.g.,State v. Christen, 1997 ME 213, ¶ 8, 704 A.2d 335 (explaining that we “avoidexpressing opinion on constitutional law whenever a nonconstitutionalresolution of the issues renders a constitutional ruling unnecessary”)

9(quotation marks omitted). However, we must decide the case before us, andthe record definitively forecloses the application of the special needs doctrineand the existence of probable cause prior to the blood draw. Therefore, wemust focus on the facial constitutionality of section 2522, which mandates thedrawing of blood without any requirement of probable cause before the blooddraw.B.Absence of Probable Cause[¶14] There is hardly a principle of constitutional law more firmlyentrenched than the requirement that law enforcement officers may conduct asearch only when they have probable cause to believe that a crime has beencommitted. See, e.g., State v. Martin, 2015 ME 91, ¶ 8, 120 A.3d 113 (stating thata warrantless search is not unreasonable “if it is supported by probable causeand exigent circumstances exist”) (quotation marks omitted); Chambers v.Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 51 (1970) (“In enforcing the Fourth Amendment’sprohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, the [Supreme] Courthas insisted upon probable cause as a minimum requirement for a reasonablesearch permitted by the Constitution.”); United States v. Place, 660 F.2d 44, 47(2d Cir. 1981) (“Even in those rare instances where warrantless seizures arepermitted . . . the police must still have probable cause . . . .”); Fisher v. Volz, 496

10F.2d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 1974) (“Of course, the Supreme Court has recognizedexceptions to the requirement of a search warrant, but the Court has been quiteclear that these exceptions, based upon exigent circumstances, do not dispensewith the requirement of probable cause.”) (quotation marks omitted); People v.Scott, 227 P.3d 894, 898 (Colo. 2010) (explaining that “[o]f course, probablecause cannot be established after the search”). We could not find any case thatallowed probable cause to be established after the search or seizure.[¶15] All evidence of Weddle’s possible intoxication—the bottle ofwhiskey, subsequent blood test results, and the testimony of eyewitnesses—was gathered after Weddle’s blood was drawn and cannot be used to justify thesearch. This evidence obtained after the blood draw was the basis for themotion court’s denial of Weddle’s second motion to suppress.C.Special Needs Doctrine[¶16] The only exception to the warrant requirement that contemplatesa search in the absence of the constitutional requirement of probable cause isthe special needs doctrine. The special needs doctrine refers to “special needs,beyond the normal need for law enforcement, [that] make the warrant andprobable-cause requirement impracticable.” New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325,351 (1985) (Blackmun, J., concurring).

11[¶17] The most important aspect of the doctrine “lies in the nature of the‘special need’ asserted as justification for the warrantless search[].” Fergusonv. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 79 (2001). In Skinner v. Railway LaborExecutives’ Association, 489 U.S. 602, 620 (1989), where a railroad regulationrequired the testing of railroad employees’ blood following serious trainaccidents, it was the “[g]overnment’s interest in regulating the conduct ofrailroad employees to ensure safety . . . [that] present[ed] ‘special needs’beyond normal law enforcement . . . [and] justif[ied] departure[] from the usualwarrant and probable-cause requirements” (quotation marks omitted). Theregulation was promulgated “not to assist in the prosecution of employees, butrather to prevent accidents and casualties from railroad operations that resultin impairment of employees by alcohol or drugs.” Id. at 620-21 (quotationmarks omitted). The Skinner decision, which we relied on in the 2007 Cormierdecision,4 included no discussion indicating that the results from those bloodtests were used for law enforcement purposes. Id. at 606-07, 610-11, 620-21.The only consequences flowing from the results of the blood tests that theSupreme Court was aware of were related to disciplinary proceedings, and theprimary purpose of the tests was to dissuade the use of intoxicants by railroad4See infra ¶¶ 22-26.

12employees. Id. at 610-11, 620-21 (“The [Federal Railroad Administration] hasprescribed toxicological tests, not to assist in the prosecution of employees, butrather to prevent accidents and casualties in railroad operations that resultfrom impairment of employees by alcohol or drugs.”) (quotation marksomitted).[¶18] In contrast, in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, decided after Skinner,the Supreme Court held that a state hospital policy requiring the diagnostictesting of pregnant women meeting certain criteria, such as history of drugabuse, could not be justified by the special needs exception because the resultsof the warrantless blood tests were frequently handed over to law enforcement.532 U.S. at 84-86. “While the ultimate goal of the program may well have beento get the women in question into substance abuse treatment and off of drugs,the immediate objective of the searches was to generate evidence for lawenforcement purposes in order to reach that goal.” Id. at 82-83 (emphasis inoriginal). As the Supreme Court explained, the “stark and unique fact thatcharacterizes [Ferguson] is that [the policy] was designed to obtain evidence ofcriminal conduct by the tested patients that would be turned over to the policeand that could be admissible in subsequent criminal prosecutions.” Id. at 85-86.

13[¶19] The warrantless blood draw mandated by section 2522(2), muchlike the hospital policy in Ferguson, has a clear law enforcement purpose. Thestatute requires that law enforcement “shall cause” the administration of ablood test and describes when the results from those tests are admissible attrial. See 29-A M.R.S. § 2522(2), (3). While “[t]he threat of law enforcementmay ultimately have been intended as a means to an end”—addressing theproblem of intoxicated driving—“the immediate objective of the search[] [is] togenerate evidence for law enforcement purposes in order to reach that goal.”Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 83-84 (emphasis in original).[¶20] Neither the “magnitude of the drunken driving problem [n]or theState[’s] interest in eradicating it,” Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141, 160 (2013)(quotation marks omitted), is disputed. Nor do we minimize the challengesfacing law enforcement at the scene of a fatal or potentially fatal accident scene.Nevertheless, “the general importance of the government’s interest in this areadoes not justify departing from the warrant requirement . . . .” Id. Nor does “thefact that people are accorded less privacy in automobiles because of thecompelling governmental need for regulation . . . diminish a motorist’s privacyinterest in preventing an agent of the government from piercing his skin.” Id.at 159 (alterations omitted) (quotation marks omitted).

14[¶21] Section 2522 does not advance a “‘special need’ . . . divorced fromthe State’s general interest in law enforcement” that justifies a departure fromthe Fourth Amendment’s requirements of a warrant and individualizedsuspicion. Ferguson, 532 U.S. at 79. “[G]iven the extensive involvement of lawenforcement officials at every stage,” section 2522 “does not fit within theclosely guarded category of ‘special needs,’” id. at 84, and the statute cannot beconstitutionally sustained on that basis.D.State v. Cormier[¶22] In a 2007 decision, State v. Cormier, we upheld the constitutionalityof a warrantless blood draw taken pursuant to section 2522, notwithstandingthe absence of probable cause at the time of the search and despite anacknowledgment that none of the traditional exceptions to the warrantrequirement applied. 2007 ME 112, ¶ 18, 928 A.2d 753.[¶23] As to the probable cause requirement, we opined that the statuteallowed for a determination of previously existing probable cause after thesearch, rather than before, when “but for the exigencies at the scene of thecollision, probable cause for the test would have been discovered” and “the testwould have been administered based on the probable cause established by thisindependent lawfully obtained information.” Id. ¶ 26. As to the requirement of

15a warrant or the application of an exception to the warrant requirement, wedetermined that a combination of the exigent circumstances present at thescene of a fatal accident and the inevitable discovery doctrine5 rendered awarrantless blood draw reasonable in the narrow circumstances contemplatedby section 2522. Id. ¶¶ 20-27. As an alternative, we also held that “[t]he State’sspecial needs, separate from the general purpose of law enforcement, justify anexception to the warrant requirement in these circumstances.”6 Id. ¶ 36.[¶24] Two dissenting justices, however, took the position that section2522 is unconstitutional on its face. Id. ¶ 59 (Levy, J., dissenting). In thedissenting justices’ view, the application of a “new theory” combining exigentcircumstances and inevitable discovery could not salvage section 2522. Id.¶ 53. Specifically, the dissent noted that the inevitable discovery rule was notapplicable as it “is physically impossible for the same sample to besubsequently and inevitably discovered later in time because of the effect thatThe inevitable discovery doctrine is an exception to the exclusionary rule that allows for the“admission of evidence obtained without a warrant if (1) the evidence could also have been gainedlawfully from information that is truly independent from the warrantless search, and (2) the evidenceinevitably would have been discovered by such lawful means.” State v. Cormier, 2007 ME 112, ¶ 17,928 A.2d 753; see also State v. St. Yves, 2000 ME 97, ¶ 18 & n.7, 751 A.2d 1018.56 Also based on the special needs exception, we have previously upheld the constitutionality ofsection 2522’s predecessor, 29 M.R.S.A. § 1312(8), (11), repealed by 1993 P.L. c. 683. See State v.Roche, 681 A.2d 472, 475 (Me. 1996); see also State v. Bento, 600 A.2d 1094, 1096-97 (Me. 1991)(holding that section 1312 does not require probable cause of intoxication prior to the blood draw,only before admittance at trial, but declining to reach the constitutionality of the statute).

16the passage of time has on an operator’s blood-alcohol content,” and that theexigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement applies only whenthere “is adequate probable cause for the seizure and insufficient time for thepolice to obtain a warrant.” Id. ¶¶ 55, 57 (quotation marks omitted). Thedissenting justices also concluded that the primary purpose of section 2522was clearly to gather evidence for law enforcement purposes; a purpose that isat odds with the requirements of the special needs exception. Id. ¶ 52.[¶25] For clarification, we note that Cormier did not apply the traditionalexigent circumstances exception, which requires both exigent circumstancesand probable cause prior to the warrantless search or seizure. See id. ¶ 18 (“Werecognize that a search authorized by section 2522 does not fall neatly intoeither of these exceptions. . . . The exigent circumstances exception is ordinarilyapplicable to a search conducted after determining the existence of probablecause but before a warrant can be obtained.”).Rather, in Cormier weacknowledged that, in crafting section 2522, the Legislature had determinedthat a fatal accident presented circumstances requiring immediate bloodtesting “without the ordinary pause to collect evidence relevant to whetheralcohol or drugs might have impaired the driver” necessary to establishprobable cause. Id. ¶ 20.

17[¶26] As Weddle argues, in the years since Cormier was decided, theUnited States Supreme Court has issued several decisions providing furtherguidance on the use of warrantless blood tests. See e.g., Birchfield v. NorthDakota, --- U.S. ---, 136 S. Ct. 2160 (2016); McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013). Thesedecisions highlight the important privacy interest that a person holds in his orher blood and, based on those decisions, we take this opportunity to revisit ourdecision in Cormier. In doing so, we conclude that the approach taken inCormier is no longer viable and does not reflect the “most personal anddeep-rooted expectations of privacy” that a person holds in preventing thegovernment from “intru[ding] beneath [his] skin and into his veins to obtain asample of his blood for use as evidence in a criminal investigation,” McNeely,569 U.S. at 148 (quotation marks omitted). Notwithstanding the Legislature’srecognition of a serious law enforcement problem, the statute runs afoul of theU.S. Constitution. There is no way to avoid addressing the constitutionality of2522.E.Constitutionality of Maine’s Mandatory Blood Test Statute[¶27] In this case, the Knox County officer obtained a sample of Weddle’sblood in accordance with section 2522(2). There is no dispute that prior to theblood draw, the officer did not request or obtain a warrant for the blood test

18taken at the scene of the accident, did not obtain Weddle’s consent for thatblood test, and did not have probable cause to believe that Weddle was underthe influence at the time of accident. In determining that the results of the bloodtest taken at the scene of the accident were admissible, the motion court foundthat the law enforcement officer acted pursuant to section 2522 and that 2522was constitutional.[¶28] Section 2522(3) authorizes the establishment of probable causethat “existed” at the time of the blood draw after the fact; that is, after the blooddraw had already been conducted. As a result, we conclude that section 2522cannot be constitutionally sustained because it allows a search in the form ofan intrusive, nonconsensual blood draw in the absence of probable cause—determined before the search is conducted. The specific blood draw in this casetaken pursuant to 2522 requires the same conclusion.[¶29]We conclude that 29-A M.R.S. §§ 2522(2) and (3) areunconstitutional. The statute does not require that law enforcement haveconsent or probable cause to believe that a driver is impaired before drawing aperson’s blood.Moreover, the statute is clearly intertwined with lawenforcement purposes, making the special needs doctrine inapplicable. To the

19extent that this opinion conflicts with the Cormier decision, Cormier isoverruled.[¶30] Weddle’s blood was taken without a warrant, without his consent,and without probable cause to believe that he was impaired by alcohol at thetime his blood was drawn. No exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrantrequirement applies. Therefore, the warrantless blood draw performed at thescene of the accident pursuant to 29-A M.R.S. § 2522 violated Weddle’s FourthAmendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.F.The Exclusionary Rule and the Good Faith Exception[¶31] Because we hold that Weddle’s Fourth Amendment rights wereviolated by the blood draw at the scene of the accident, we must determinewhat the appropriate remedy is. Generally, “[w]hen evidence is obtained inviolation of the Fourth Amendment, the judicially developed exclusionary ruleusually precludes its use in a criminal proceeding against the victim of theillegal search and seizure.” Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 347 (1987).[¶32] The purpose of the exclusionary rule is “to deter future unlawfulpolice conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendmentagainst unreasonable searches and seizures.” United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S.338, 347 (1974). The rule “is neither intended nor able to cure the invasion of

20the defendant’s rights which he has already suffered.” United States v. Leon, 468U.S. 897, 906 (1984) (quotation marks omitted). Instead, the rule acts as aremedial device that “safeguard[s] Fourth Amendment rights generallythrough its deterrent effect, rather than [as] a personal constitutional right ofthe party aggrieved.” Calandra, 414 U.S. at 348. “As with any remedial device,application of the exclusionary rule properly has been restricted to thosesituations in which its remedial purpose is effectively advanced.” Krull, 480 U.S.at 347.[¶33] In determining whether the purposes of the exclusionary rulewould be served in a specific case, the Supreme Court has “examined whetherthe rule’s deterrent effect will be achieved” and “weigh[s] the likelihood of suchdeterrence against the costs of withholding reliable information from thetruth-seeking process.” Id. The Supreme Court has stated thatbecause the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter policeofficers from violating the Fourth Amendment, evidence should besuppressed only if it can be said that the law enforcement officerhad knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, thatthe search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.Where the officer's conduct is objectively reasonable . . . excludingthe evidence will not further the ends of the exclusionary rule inany appreciable way; for it is painfully apparent that the officer isacting as a reasonable officer would and should act in similarcircumstances. Excluding the evidence can in no way affect hisfuture conduct unless it is to make him less willing to do his duty.

21Id. at 348-49 (alterations omitted) (quotation marks omitted). Thus, somejurisdictions have recognized a good faith exception to the exclusionary rule,by which the results of an illegal search are nonetheless admissible at trialbecause the purpose of the exclusionary rule would not be served by theexclusion of that evidence—i.e., when the evidence was obtained “in thereasonable good-faith belief that a search or seizure was in accord with theFourth Amendment.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 909 (quotation marks omitted).[¶34] In Maine, we have not previously adopted the good faith exceptionto the exclusionary rule, but we have acknowledged the Supreme Court’s andother jurisdictions’ application of the exception in various contexts. See e.g.,State v. Nunez, 2016 ME 185, ¶¶ 1 n.1, 16-17 & n.8, 153 A.3d 84; State v.Estabrook, 2007 ME 130, ¶ 1, 932 A.2d 549. In many instances, the good faithexception has been applied when an officer, acting in good faith, relies upon asearch warrant that is faulty for some reason not apparent to the officer. See,e.g., Leon, 468 U.S. at 920-21. However, the Supreme Court has also applied thegood faith exception to situations where an officer has obtained evidence byacting in “objectively reasonable reliance on a statute.” Krull, 480 U.S. at 349.In such cases, “[u]nless a statute is clearly unconstitutional, an officer cannot beexpected to question the judgment of the legislature that passed the law,” and

22application of the exclusionary rule would not serve its purpose of deterrence.Id. at 349-50. “A statute cannot support objectively reasonable reliance i

of a warrantless blood draw taken at the scene of a fatal motor vehicle accident.2 [¶2] Specifically, Weddle argues that 29-A M.R.S. § 2522(2) (2018), which directs law enforcement officers to test the blood of all drivers involved in a fatal, or likely fatal, motor