Court Opinion

ID: 9625230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:32:36.988065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:03.964269
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I concur fully with the dissent written by Judge Smith and must acknowledge that we erred in Smith v. State, 143 Ga. App. 347 (238 SE2d 698) (1977). ". . . The doctrine of stare decisis should not be followed to the extent that error may be perpetuated.” Humthlett v. Reeves, 211 Ga. 210, 215 (85 SE2d 25) (1954).
As stated by Justice Ingram in his dissent in Strong *84v. State, 231 Ga. 514, 519 (202 SE2d 428) (1973), "The appellant did not even have the same right extended to a conscious person to take either a breath test or blood test or lose his driver’s license.” It should be noted in the majority view of this same opinion that even though the taking of the blood sample did not breach constitutional safeguards under Breithaupt v. Abrams, 352 U. S. 432 (77 SC 408, 1 LE2d 448); Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (86 SC 1826, 16 LE2d 908), nonetheless the majority opinion held, "There remains for decision appellant’s contention that the use of the results of the blood test against him at the trial required him to give evidence against himself.”
It must be observed that in Schmerber and Breithaupt, supra, wherein the right to take blood samples was nonviolative of 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment rights, it does not appear that special statutory built-in optional "rights of privacy” existed in that state as evident in Georgia. Our statute provides the absolute option, choice and right to surrender and have suspended one’s driver’s license, as an alternative, rather than submit and subject to sudden bodily seizure, without court order or warrant, of "tainted” blood for later possible use as evidence in a criminal case. Georgia is the early pioneer in identifying fundamental, inherent and inalienable rights such as the "right of privacy.” See Pavesich v. New England Mut. &c. Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (50 SE 68) (1905). Compare Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (85 SC 1678, 14 LE2d 510) (1965) which outlines sources of privacy rights within the penumbra of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th and 14th Amendments, particularly the special concurrence by Justice Goldberg, concurred in by Chief Justice Warren and Justice Brennan, and dissents thereto relating to the double standard debates of penumbras-emanations approach vs. the natural, inherent and fundamental law and rights approach. Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973) and Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (93 SC 705, 35 LE2d 147) (1973), the former a Georgia case and the latter a Texas case, involve somewhat similar points. The last case holds the privacy rights of the expectant mother, whether through 1st, 4th, 5th or 9th Amendments, outweighed the privacy rights, or potential *85thereof, of the life of the fetus. The rights of the potential mother prevailed over the potential rights of the fetus, and the latter, as possibly millions of others, is denied equal protection of the laws and is labeled a nonperson, because it had not yet been born. However, where special statutory rights and alternatives are set forth by statute for all persons, in obtaining blood from the body, the unconscious (the weak), like the fetus, should have equal protection as to privacy alternatives, the same as the conscious (the strong), like the mother.
Even though the statutes discussed relate to the license to drive an automobile, which is a privilege, any nomenclature label or distinction must yield to the obvious conclusion the "tainted” blood obtained is de facto if not de jure utilized for later criminal proceedings in prosecuting the unconscious (the weak) in a criminal proceeding without the opportunity of making an intelligent and informed waiver of his statutory and constitutional inherent, fundamental, natural and inalienable rights, while, on the other hand, the conscious (the strong) has a superior and unequal right to absolutely surrender his license and insulate and protect himself from prosecution and criminal conviction.
Even in Creamer v. State, 229 Ga. 511 (192 SE2d 350) (1972), wherein it was held that it was not an unreasonable invasion of one’s body to surgically remove a bullet from a defendant’s body, a search warrant was required before proceeding with the operation, plus in this type situation there was no statutory option or alternative rule applying one method to a conscious person (the strong) and another discriminatory rule as to the unconscious (the weak).
Probing for a bullet or removing blood differs in degrees as to reasonableness and as to methodology of extraction, but whatever standards are finally adopted and proscribed must provide equal protection of the laws to all alike, particularly when penetrating the privacy of one’s person. One should not have a strong superior right to control his body and retain his blood, while the weak, prostrate and helpless, who has no control over his body, does not have an equal right to retain his blood, or if taken, have a later opportunity to make an informed and intelli*86gent waiver or equal choice, as did the former.