Court Opinion

ID: 9667906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:57:29.683201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.437575
License: Public Domain

T. M. Burns, J.
(dissenting). In Lebel v Swincicki, 354 Mich 427; 93 NW2d 281 (1958), our Supreme Court held as follows:
"[T]he taking of blood for purposes of analysis from the person of one who is unconscious at the time constitutes a violation of his rights, and that testimony *157based on the analysis of such blood should not be admitted in evidence.” 354 Mich at 440.
The Court expressly made its holding applicable to criminal cases. 354 Mich at 437. Lebel still represents the law in this state. The fact that the United States Supreme Court has seen fit to adopt a different rule for the Federal courts does not affect the validity of Lebel. For that reason, I would order that the evidence of the blood test results in the trial below be suppressed.
Personally, I find this kind of police conduct to be unconscionable. The United States Supreme Court justices dissenting in Breithaupt and Schmerber argued variously that the use in a criminal trial of the results of a blood sample extracted over the defendant’s protest or while unconscious violated virtually every constitutional right enjoyed by the individual. My objection to such "forcible blood-letting”1 does not rest upon a perceived violation of any particular constitutional right, but upon the broad underlying concept that the Bill of Rights renders more concrete: the natural right of the individual to be treated by the state with decency, respect and fairness. Invading a man’s body while he lies unconscious, extracting blood and then using such to convict the man of a crime is shocking to the sensibilities. I cannot vote to condone it.

 Schmerber v California, 384 US 757, 779; 86 S Ct 1826, 1840; 16 L Ed 2d 908, 924 (1966), Justice Douglas, dissenting.