Awad v. State

Police found Omar Awad asleep behind the wheel of a car stopped in an intersection, arrested him on suspicion of DUI, and asked him to urinate into a container for chemical testing. Awad refused. Before trial he asked the court to keep his refusal out of evidence, arguing that Georgia's constitutional right against self-incrimination protected him the same way it protects breath-test refusals. A superior court agreed, but the Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed, so the case went to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The Supreme Court sided with Awad. Building on its earlier rulings in Olevik and Elliott, the court held that producing a urine sample in a container on command is an unnatural, deliberate act that generates evidence against the person, just like forceful breathing into a breath-test machine. Because the state constitution bars punishing someone for refusing to perform such an act, the court reversed the Court of Appeals and sent the case back.

The court held that Georgia's constitutional right against compelled self-incrimination protects a defendant's refusal to urinate into a collection container for chemical testing, because doing so requires performing an unnatural, deliberate act that generates evidence, just as forceful breathing into a breath-test machine does.

DUI suspects across Georgia can no longer have their refusal to give a urine sample used against them at trial, changing how prosecutors build DUI cases that rely on urine testing and how police and defense lawyers advise suspects during traffic stops.

Reversed and remanded

1. The court recalled its ruling in Olevik that Georgia's self-incrimination clause (Paragraph XVI) bars the State from forcing someone to perform an act that itself creates incriminating evidence, and that forceful, sustained blowing into a breath-test machine counts as such an act.
2. It recalled Elliott's holding that once a test would require the defendant to perform such an act, the State also cannot tell the jury that the defendant refused to take the test, because the same constitutional protection that bars the test results bars punishing the refusal.
3. Applying that framework, the court reasoned that urinating into a container on command, at a specific time and in a specific way so the sample can be chemically analyzed, is not simply a natural bodily process but a deliberate, directed act, unlike merely drawing blood or swabbing DNA from someone's body.
4. The court distinguished its earlier decision in Green v. State, explaining that Green only addressed whether a probationer had been compelled at all, not whether producing urine involved performing an act, so Green does not conflict with today's ruling.
5. The court rejected the State's argument that uncertainty about the collection method (such as catheterization versus urinating into a container) should excuse it from the rule, holding that the State bears the burden of proving the refused method did not require an act, and it failed to do so here.

• DUI
• self-incrimination
• urine test refusal
• implied consent
• Georgia Constitution