What happens when you refuse the test

Missouri’s implied consent rule

Driving on Missouri highways means you are “deemed to have given consent” to a chemical test of breath, blood, saliva or urine if you are arrested on reasonable grounds to believe you were operating while intoxicated. There is a limit that matters: implied consent extends to no more than two tests arising from the same stop or arrest.

To be valid, the analysis has to be performed according to methods approved by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, by licensed medical personnel or someone holding a valid permit. That is not a formality — it is one of the first things a defense attorney checks.

You also retain the right to an independent test at your own expense.

The 20-minute rule, and the case that gave it teeth

If you ask to speak to an attorney when a test is requested, Missouri law says you shall be granted twenty minutes to attempt to contact one. If the 20 minutes elapses and you continue to refuse, that is deemed a refusal.

Two decisions matter here. The Missouri Supreme Court held in 2010 that the 20 minutes runs from the implied consent advisement. And in Roesing v. Director of Revenue (2019), the Court held that a refusal was not voluntary where the officer denied the driver a private consultation with counsel and the Director failed to show the absence of prejudice. Being handed a phone in a room full of officers is not the same as being allowed to call a lawyer, and that distinction has decided real cases.

The consequences

• One-year revocation of your license, imposed by the Department of Revenue on receipt of the officer’s report
• The revocation becomes two years unless proof of financial responsibility — the SR-22 — is filed with the Department
• Your refusal is admissible as evidence in any proceeding relating to the arrest, and the officer is required to warn you of exactly that before you decide
• Reinstatement requires SATOP, the $45 reinstatement fee, and SR-22 for two years

How you challenge it — and it is not the DOR hearing

This is where refusal cases genuinely differ, and where a lot of online guidance is wrong. A .08 case goes to an administrative hearing at the Department of Revenue. A refusal case does not. You file a petition for review in the circuit or associate circuit court of the county where the arrest or stop occurred, and you can ask that court to stay the revocation while it is pending.

The court decides only three issues:

1. Whether you were arrested or stopped
2. Whether the officer had reasonable grounds to believe you were driving while in an intoxicated or drugged condition
3. Whether you refused to submit to the test

If the court determines any one of those not to be in the affirmative, it shall order your license reinstated. That is a narrow scope, but it is also a real one: “reasonable grounds” is litigable, and so is whether what happened actually constituted a refusal — particularly where the 20-minute right was not properly honored.

Should you refuse? An honest answer

People ask this constantly, and any lawyer who gives you a confident universal answer is selling something. The trade-off is real: refusing denies the State a number, but it guarantees a one-year revocation that a .08 first offense would not carry, and the refusal comes into evidence anyway. Which is worse depends on facts nobody knows in advance.

What we can tell you without hedging is that if you are stopped, you have the right to ask to speak with an attorney before deciding, and Missouri gives you 20 minutes to do it. That is the moment to use.