Note:
Phillip T. Bruns, Driving While Intoxicated and the Right to Counsel: The Case Against Implied Consent, 58 TEXAS L. REV. 935 (1980).
 

Abstract:
All fifty states and the District of Columbia currently have some kind of implied consent statute that governs administration of intoxication tests to persons arrested for driving while intoxicated. Each of these statutes dictates that such a person’s driver’s license may be revoked or suspended if he or she refuses to consent to an intoxication test. What many drivers may not know is that, while refusal to submit to the test may mean forfeiture of one’s license, it may also mean escape from prosecution for driving while intoxicated. In practice, this all means that a driver has to make the important decision whether to submit to an intoxication test without full knowledge of the consequences of the decision and without advice of counsel. This note argues that implied consent statutes violate the 6th amendment of the Constitution, and it recommends that, rather than confronting citizens with a difficult choice at the time of arrest, the states simply remove the choice and force submission to an intoxication test. The dangers of police brutality associated with such a compulsion approach can be dealt with in other ways.