(Reuters) – The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the ability of police to take involuntary blood samples from suspected drunken drivers without a search warrant.

The court ruled that a blood test administered on a Missouri driver without a warrant violated his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Missouri state police administered the test after the driver, Tyler McNeely, refused to submit to a breathalyzer test.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority that concerns over the natural dissipation of alcohol in the bloodstream does not “in every case” give police a compelling reason “sufficient to justify conducting a blood test without a warrant.”

McNeely’s blood-alcohol content was measured at 0.154 percent, nearly twice Missouri’s legal limit, and the state had argued, on behalf of the police, that blood tests were an effective way to obtain evidence of drunken driving.

It said this evidence could vanish in the time it took to obtain a warrant because alcohol quickly dissipates in the bloodstream.

The upshot of Wednesday’s ruling is that the state police cannot use the blood test as evidence against McNeely and, in the similar circumstances, others in the same situation.

The Supreme Court was split on the ruling, with only three of the nine justices agreeing in full with Sotomayor’s majority opinion. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion and Chief Justice John Roberts also wrote separately concurring in part.

The case is Missouri v. McNeely, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 11-1425.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Christopher Wilson)