Court Opinion

ID: 9684187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:49:48.90114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:52.471114
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge,
dissenting on State’s motion for rehearing.
The majority overrules the State’s Motion For Rehearing without written opinion. It holds that the extraction of a sample of appellant’s blood pursuant to an order of the district court was in violation of Article 1, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution, and that there was at the time it was taken no statutory authority for the taking of the sample. In so doing, the majority holds that a district court order under a rule approved by the Legislature was unreasonable and that the taking of a sample of blood from appellant was unreasonable.
The majority reasons that the extraction of blood is a search and seizure within the meaning of Article 1, Section 9, and that as such, it cannot be performed in the absence of a search warrant issued in compliance with the provisions of Articles 1.06 and 18.02, V.A.C.C.P. In one breath, the Court asserts that the State must have complied with Article 18.02, supra, and in the next it observes that such compliance is impossible in that blood is not an item for which a search warrant may issue.
Article 1, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution states that “[t]he people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable seizures or searches . . . .” (Emphasis supplied) This section has never been held to constitute a guarantee against all searches and seizures, Vargas v. State, 542 S.W.2d 151 (Tex.Cr.App.1976), but only against those in which the citizen’s expectation of privacy is unreasonably intruded upon. The majority opinion engages in the assumption that because the extraction of blood is a search and seizure, a warrant is necessarily to be obtained. Such is not the case. The Interpretive Commentary to Article 1, Section 9 points out: “The fact that Section 9 lays down certain requirements for issuing search warrants does not, however, mean that a warrant is indispensable to the existence of a valid search and seizure. Searches and seizures prohibited without a warrant are those which are unreasonable.”
Appellant was charged with burglary of a vehicle. Some months after the crime was committed, the State filed a motion under Rule 167a, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, alleging that it was necessary to secure a sample of his blood to determine whether his blood type was identical to that discovered on a handkerchief in the burglarized vehicle. Rule 167a provides that when the mental or physical condition, including the blood group, of a party is in controversy, the court in which the action is pending may order the party to submit to a physical or mental examination by a physician upon a showing of good cause and notice to the person to be examined.
The evidence establishing probable cause to grant the order for the blood test will be summarized. On the afternoon of June 26, 1975, prior to the commission of the offense, appellant was seen carrying a blue polka dotted handkerchief in his pocket. At the time of his arrest later that evening he no longer had the bandana in his possession and Officer Fickey observed blood on the appellant’s right wrist. On the floorboard of the burglarized vehicle, whose vent window had been broken, a blue polka dotted bandana like the one appellant had been carrying earlier was found. The handkerchief was blood stained. Appellant was taken to a Bryan hospital for treatment where the examining physician determined that the cut on his arm was fresh. Ample justification existed for determining whether appellant’s blood type matched that of the blood on the handkerchief in the burglarized truck.
Appellant was taken to the Brazos County Health Unit by Detective Ronnie Miller pursuant to the order of the district court. He was at all times accompanied by his attorney. At the Health Unit, a blood sample was drawn from the appellant by a registered nurse in accordance with accept*801able medical procedures. Appellant was not handcuffed or restrained to facilitate the taking of the blood sample, and at no time was he brutalized or physically harmed in any way.
The taking of appellant’s blood sample in this case bears no resemblance to the forcible tactics condemned in Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), in which police choked the accused and pumped his stomach against his will in an attempt to recover morphine capsules which he had swallowed. By contrast, in the present case, every effort was made to afford appellant due process of law, and he was not subjected to force of any kind.
In Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), the Supreme Court of the United States established that the extraction of blood constitutes a search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The language of that amendment must be the starting point for analysis. It provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (Emphasis Supplied)
In the relatively narrow area of the law of body intrusions, there are three precedents. Rochin v. California, supra; Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 77 S.Ct. 408, 1 L.Ed.2d 448 (1957), and Schmerber v. California, supra. These cases reveal that forcible removals oUpvidence from the body by stomach pumping are unconstitutional, while extractions of blood samples, though not assented to, may not be.
Schmerber is the leading case. There, defendant was convicted for driving while intoxicated. The Court found that the war-rantless, nonconsensual withdrawal of his blood was not an unreasonable search because the arresting officer had probable cause and because that officer reasonably believed there was no time to secure a warrant.
The Court wrote:
“We thus conclude that the present record shows no violation of petitioner’s right under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. It bears repeating, however, that we reach this judgment only on the facts of the present record. The integrity of an individual’s person is a cherished value of our society. That we today hold that the Constitution does not forbid the States minor intrusions into an individual’s body under stringently limited conditions in no way indicates that it permits more substantial intrusions, or intrusions under other conditions.” 86 S.Ct. at 1836.
There was no court order in Schmerber.
In Olson v. State, 484 S.W.2d 756 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), this Court held that compelling a handwriting exemplar or sample does not constitute compelling an accused to “give evidence against himself” in violation of the Texas Constitutional self-incrimination privilege. The Court further held that compelling a blood test, if taken under conditions which comport with due process, does not violate the privilege against self-incrimination. In relying on Schmerber’s discussion of the Fifth Amendment’s relation to blood extractions, the Court reasoned that such tests are non-testimonial in nature and, thus, that the self-incrimination privilege is not implicated under such circumstances. The Fourth Amendment issue was not confronted in Olson.
The Court in Olson did observe that many types of physical evidence are compellable from an accused consistent with the Fifth Amendment. A partial list of those types of evidence follows: fingerprints, examination of the tongue, fingernail scrapings, footprints, requiring an accused to stand at a line up, requiring an accused to raise his hand before the jury, paraffin test, and requiring an accused to put on clothes and speak before the jury.
Those types of physical evidence generally are not subject to challenge on Fourth *802Amendment grounds for many of the same reasons that the Fifth Amendment is inapplicable: they involve physical attributes normally displayed to the public. No search or seizure is involved.
The trial court has some inherent authority to compel the physical production of evidence. The authority of the trial court to compel an accused to submit to fingerprinting, for example, seems to be implicitly recognized because no valid Fourth or Fifth Amendment claim may be raised. See, e. g. Price v. State, 449 S.W.2d 73 (Tex.Cr.App.1969).
United States v. Crowder, 177 U.S.App.D.C. 165, 543 F.2d 312 (1976), is the leading case which sanctions the surgical recovery of a bullet. Crowder was convicted of murder. A bullet which was surgically removed from his arm proved to be damaging evidence against him. The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals held that Crowder’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when the trial court ordered the removal of the bullet. The main focus of the majority opinion concerned the government’s compliance with due process.
In addressing the Fourth Amendment claim, the majority observed that Crowder had been given a full adversary hearing. The trial judge determined that probable cause was established and ordered Crowder to submit to surgery. The order was “carefully drawn and hedged so as to protect Crowder’s health and life. . . .’’ The Court concluded that the order was reasonable under the circumstances and affirmed.
Rule 167a has been approved by the Legislature. A district judge followed that rule in ordering that a sample of appellant’s blood be extracted. The Legislature has subsequently authorized search warrants to be issued for evidence.1 This follows the rule that already authorizes the taking of a blood sample.
The Court has held in Hernandez v. State, 548 S.W.2d 904 (Tex.Cr.App.1977), that it was not unreasonable for an officer to hold a suspect by the arms while another choked him until he spat up four balloons of heroin.
The Court should hold that it was not unreasonable for a registered nurse to take blood under a court order pursuant to a rule approved by the Legislature.

. Article 18.02, V.A.C.C.P., as amended was enacted in Chapter 237, Section 2, at page 640 in 1977 effective May 25, 1977. It now provides for the issuance of search warrants for evidence.