Local prosecutors say a long-anticipated Hawaii Supreme Court decision that finally arrived Wednesday will likely affect a “considerable number” of unresolved drunken-driving cases across the state — even causing cases to be dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

The high court’s 3-2 decision generally found that those arrested for drunken driving in Hawaii in recent years weren’t able to give the proper consent to take a blood-alcohol test because they faced jail time and fines if they refused. More specifically, the ruling focused on a prolonged court battle over a drunken-driving case that prosecutors and court officials have been keeping an eye on for at least a year: the State of Hawaii vs. Yong Shik Won.

The court’s ruling Wednesday favored Won, whose 2011 driving- under-the-influence conviction relied on a breath test that showed he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.17, according to court documents. That’s more than two times the state’s 0.08 legal limit to drive.

Won consented to the breath test after he initialed a consent form that said he faced up to $1,000 in fines and 30 days in jail if he refused to submit to it, according to court documents.

The form mirrors a state law enacted that same year that made it a misdemeanor crime to refuse to submit to such breath tests, as well as blood or urine tests, to determine intoxication.

The law is similar to statutes in other states, officials say.

Won, through his defense attorney, Jonathan Burge, had argued the Hawaii law is coercive and violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches.

“If you don’t consent to this search, you’re going to go to jail for 30 days. And that’s what they told people as they did all this.” Burge said Wednesday, referring to blood, breath and urine tests.

David Koga, a spokesman for the Honolulu prosecutor’s office, said that numerous DUI cases have been put on hold in the state court system as officials awaited the outcome of the Won case, although he didn’t have an exact number. Burge put the number at about 3,000.

Wednesday’s ruling means that now each of those cases has to be reviewed individually, Koga said.

The DUI cases relying solely on the physical evidence gathered from blood, breath or urine tests will likely be dismissed, he said. It’s not clear exactly how the court’s ruling would affect similar DUI cases since 2011, when the state law went into effect. However, Koga said that typically rulings such as these aren’t retroactive.

Supreme Court Justices Sabrina McKenna, Richard Pollack and Michael Wilson ruled that Won did not voluntarily consent to the breath test used in his DUI conviction.

Won’s breath test could not be used as evidence against him, the majority concluded. In his separate concurring opinion, Wilson further called the state law criminalizing refusal to submit unconstitutional.

“Hawaii is not a state whose citizens fall prey to the proposition that, by obtaining a driver’s license, they impliedly surrender their right to receive the protection of a warrant before enduring a blood or breath search,” Wilson wrote.

The decision reversed an Intermediate Court of Appeals ruling against Won last year. The lower court said that Hawaii is one of at least 14 states that criminalize the refusal to take a breath test. The court’s decision said driving is a privilege and that a person exercising that privilege gives consent to be tested for alcohol or drugs.

The majority ruling should prompt law enforcement agencies across the state to change the wording on their test consent forms as soon as possible so that they omit the threat of criminal penalties if those arrested refuse to submit to the tests, Koga said.

The dissenting opinion from Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald and Justice Paula Nakayama asserted that the state law was constitutional.

“A number of state and federal courts have considered the constitutionality of statutes similar to that at issue here, and none of them have held that a driver’s decision to agree to take a breath or blood test is coerced simply because the state has attached the penalty of making it a crime to refuse the test,” they wrote.

The majority decision does not stop the state from confiscating driver’s licenses for up to two years for refusing to submit to the tests because that’s an administrative action, both Burge and Koga said. Many of those arrested in those cases could still be convicted under evidence from field sobriety tests, they also added.

“It’s not necessarily throwing every case out, it’s just taking away half of the case” by eliminating evidence from blood, breath and urine tests, Burge said. “It all depends on the strength of the case. If they’re strong cases they’ll still be convicted.”

Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Shikina contributed to this report.