Court Opinion

ID: 9466672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:22:55.87823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:52.213578
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Having exercised the duty of review which the Due Process Clause “inescapably imposes upon this [cjourt,” I have concluded that the police procedures used here “offend those canons of decency and fairness” which ought to govern our conduct, especially toward one who is suspected of no more than seeking surcease by ingesting a depressant not totally unlike those commonly approved in our society. Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 169, 72 S.Ct. 205, 208, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952) (quoting Malinski v. New York, 324 U.S. 401, 416-17, 65 S.Ct. 781, 788-89, 89 L.Ed. 1029 (1945)). Our duty is to examine “the whole course of the proceedings,” not just isolated portions. Id.
Here the police without warrant followed the defendant into a restroom, seized him, hauled him away and demanded a urine sample under the threat of forced catheteri-zation.1 That citizens, as part of such indignities, may be forced to yield to police demands under the threat of the final painful act offends my sense of decency as much as does an actual thrust into a body cavity. It would astound me if our law approved official threats of the type of indecencies condemned in Rochin, while disapproving only actual consummation of the threatened indignities.

. Since the police say they took the defendant to a hospital, I simply would not credit any other view than that the threat occurred. A “request” for a truly voluntary urine sample does not require hospital facilities.