Motion to suppress the blood alcohol test results from a DataMaster as the product of an unlawful arrest; Whether a preliminary breath test (PBT) or other field sobriety tests were properly administered; MI Admin. R 325.2655(2)(b); People v. Fosnaugh; Probable cause; People v. Lewis; People v. Lyon; Totality of the circumstances; People v. Nguyen; People v. Champion; Terry stops; Terry v. Ohio; Traffic stops; People v. Nelson; People v. Barbarich; Chemical breath tests for alcohol as “searches” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n; People v. Chowdhury; MCL 257.625a(2); “Reasonable cause”; People v. Freeman; The exclusionary rule; People v. Hawkins; Operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OWI)

Concluding that R 325.2655(2)(b) does not preclude “PBT operators from making reasonable inferences about the recent past[,]” the court held that the PBT test here was properly administered. Further, given the totality of the circumstances, an officer could reasonably believe that defendant was OWI. Thus, the information the arresting officer (P) had was sufficient to give him reasonable cause to perform a PBT, and probable cause to arrest defendant. As a result, it affirmed the circuit court’s order reversing the district court’s grant of defendant’s motion to suppress the results of a subsequent blood alcohol test using a DataMaster. He argued that they should be suppressed as the product of an unlawful arrest. The issues were whether P’s “alleged failure to comply with the PBT standards invalidated the results and whether [P] had sufficient evidence to support probable cause for defendant’s arrest” when it was made. Nothing in R 325.2655(2)(b) suggests “that a ‘determination’ that the testee had ‘not smoked, regurgitated, or placed anything in his or her mouth for at least 15 minutes’ must be based exclusively on the operator’s own personal uninterrupted monitoring.” Thus, P’s delegation of the observation duty to another officer was “perfectly permissible . . . .” Further, the evidence strongly indicated that he “had an adequate basis to determine that defendant had ‘not smoked, regurgitated, or placed anything in his or her mouth for at least 15 minutes’” before the PBT was administered. P did not smell any smoke or see a lit cigarette in defendant’s car. He stated that he had to be within four car-lengths of the car to see the “license plate tag, and he followed defendant for several minutes, during which, even though it was nighttime and ‘not the best vantage point,’ he did not observe anything to suggest defendant was smoking.” He also testified that it was his standard practice to ask if a testee “had eaten or drank anything, which defendant denied other than” one alcoholic beverage. In addition, P “checked defendant’s mouth before administering the PBT, and he did not otherwise observe anything else to suggest that defendant had recently eaten, drank, smoked, or regurgitated.” The court added that “even without the PBT test, [P] would have had probable cause to arrest defendant, and the arrest was not based on a mere ‘hunch.’”