Court Opinion

ID: 9858706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:35:09.564284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:32.008925
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Judge,
concurring in result.
I concur in the principal opinion except as to the issue of removal of the bullet from defendant. Because of the treatment given that issue by the principal opinion, I must concur only in the result.
The removal of the bullet raises Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment issues, which in this instance should have been resolved in favor of the defendant. I believe the surgery to which the defendant was ordered to submit violated the proscriptions of those amendments.
To resolve the issue presented, we look for guidance to the cases of Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 77 S.Ct. 408, 1 L.Ed.2d 448 (1957) and Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966).
In Rochin, three deputy sheriffs forcibly entered Rochin ⅛ home without a warrant and made their way to the bedroom where Rochin swallowed two capsules. Following an unsuccessful attempt by the deputies to remove the capsules from Roehin’s mouth by force, he was rushed to a hospital where, at the direction of the deputies, a doctor forced an emetic solution through a tube into Rochin’s stomach. The procedure induced vomiting which produced the capsules which were found to contain morphine. In the opinion delivered by Justice Frankfurter the Court declared (342 U.S. at 172 and 173, 72 S.Ct. at 209-210):
“This is conduct that shocks the conscience. Illegally breaking into the privacy of the petitioner, the struggle to open his mouth and remove what was there, the forcible extraction of his stomach’s contents — this course of proceedings by agents of government to obtain evidence is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities. They are methods too close to the rack and the screw to permit of constitutional differentiation.
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*632“Due process of law, as a historic and generative principle, precludes defining, and thereby confining, these standards of conduct more precisely than to say that convictions cannot be brought about by methods that offend ‘a sense of justice.’ ”
Several years later, the Supreme Court in Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 77 S.Ct. 408, 1 L.Ed.2d 448 (1957), upheld a manslaughter conviction arising from an automobile accident involving Breithaupt who had been driving while intoxicated. At trial, the result of a test on a blood sample extracted, at a policeman’s request, while Breithaupt was unconscious, was admitted into evidence. In sustaining the conviction the Court compared the facts in Breithaupt to those in Rochin and noted:
“We set aside the conviction because such conduct ‘shocked the conscience’ and was so ‘brutal’ and ‘offensive’ that it did not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency. We therefore found that the conduct was offensive to due process. But we see nothing comparable here to the facts in Rochin.” Id. 352 U.S. at 435, 77 S.Ct. at 410.
The Court concluded that a procedure that “has become routine in our everyday life” and is performed by a “skilled technician is not such ‘conduct that shocks the conscience’, . . . , nor such a method of obtaining evidence that it offends a ‘sense of justice,’ . . . .” Id. 352 U.S. at 437, 77 S.Ct. at 411.
In 1961, the Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) applied the exclusionary rule to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the standards guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment came to be applied in search and seizure cases. Therefore, in 1966, the Court determined the propriety of the seizure in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966) in the light of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
In Schmerber, a blood sample was taken following an arrest for driving while intoxicated. The Court first noted that “[t]he overriding function of the Fourth Amendment is to protect personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State.” Id. 384 U.S. at 767, 86 S.Ct. at 1834. It noted that “the Fourth Amendment’s proper function is to constrain, not against all intrusions as such, but against intrusions which are not justified in the circumstances, or which are made in an improper manner.” Id. 384 U.S. at 768, 86 S.Ct. at 1834. The Court discussed the constitutional requirements attending the question presented and concluded:
“[T]hat 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.” Id. 384 U.S. at 772, 86 S.Ct. at 1836.
In my opinion, we are told by Schmerber that we are to decide questions of the constitutional propriety of, intrusions into a person’s body on a case to case basis. More importantly, we are told that “[t]he integrity of an individual’s person is a cherished value of our society . . . ,” and unless we can declare an intrusion into an individual’s body a “minor intrusion,” we must hold such intrusion impermissible.
The principal opinion relies heavily on the case of United States v. Crowder, 543 F.2d 312 (D.C.Cir. 1976). In so doing, the principal opinion fails to address the due process and Fourth Amendment problems with which the Court was concerned in Rochin, Breithaupt and Schmerber. An excellent case note on Crowder appears at 55 Texas Law Review 147 (1976). Particularly appropriate here is the following which appears at pages 153 and 154:
“The Crowder majority focused upon the reasonableness of the authorization *633procedure rather than the reasonableness of the intrusion itself. Consequently, the court passed over a significant line of fourth amendment cases as well as a number of state bullet removal and bodily intrusion cases to reach its decision. At the outset, the Crowder majority defined a reasonable operation as one with a very low risk of permanent injury. Then under the rubric of procedure the court further circumscribed this definition. Only when probable cause exists for a court to believe that an operation would produce relevant and necessary evidence may the operation proceed. As if to concede the high risk of error inherent in these mixed medical and legal judgments, the court emphasized the availability of an adversary hearing and full appellate review before the operation may even begin. This analytical framework, however, neglects several elements implicit in other branches of fourth amendment case law. First, in the Crow-der analysis bodily sanctity counts for nothing; the court deems Schmerber to have abdicated it. If the court believed that Schmerber established the fourth amendment reasonableness of evidentiary medial procedures, it should have labored harder to close the analytical gaps between the nature of the blood test that Schmerber authorized and the Crowder surgery. Only consideration of the bodily sanctity element can ensure accurate fourth amendment analysis. An analysis that comprehends only the risk of permanent injury as the index of reasonableness weighs heavily in favor of authorizing most medically advisable operations.
“In evaluating Crowder and similar cases, courts have several options open to them: they may proceed on a case-by-case basis as Crowder purports to do; they may identify a class of surgery that is unreasonable per se and consider other cases as they arise; or they may hew close to the Schmerber holding and find all but routine body intrusions such as blood tests unreasonable per se. In deciding whether surgical intrusions should be ruled illegal per se, courts must first determine if there exists a workable test that can be applied on a case-by-case basis. A balancing test rather than the procedural test of Crowder most accurately reflects the interests at stake in each instance of proposed surgery.
Five elements deserve consideration in making this decision. Implicitly, these elements strike a balance between the state’s interest in obtaining evidence through surgery and the individual’s interest in the inviolability of his body. Analysis of these points may suggest a risk of judicial error great enough to support complete disallowance of surgery for evidence under any circumstances. On the other hand, these five concerns may constitute a judicially manageable test for case-by-case surgical authorizations. The first four — the risk of harm to defendant, the purpose of the intrusion, a clear indication that the intrusion would produce the desired evidence, and the magnitude of the public interest — deserve equal weight; the final element — sanctity of the human body — should predominate unless overwhelmed by the first four. These first three elements are consistent with the factors considered in the Crowder approach and most of the state bullet removal cases, although the proposed evidentiary standard — clear indication — goes beyond the probable cause requirement of Crowder. The fourth element — public interest — is suggested by an examination of the Schmerber and Breithaupt analyses. The preeminence of bodily integrity rests upon the notion that the integrity of an individual’s person is an especially cherished value of our society. Only when, as in Schmerber, an invasion of human dignity is outweighed by the importance of other factors, should courts authorize an intrusion.”
I respectfully submit that the principal opinion, as did Crowder, has “focused upon the reasonableness of the authorization procedure rather than the reasonableness of the intrusion itself.” I would urge the adoption of a balancing test on the order of the one suggested in the case note in the *634Texas Law Review. In my opinion, if such guidelines were adopted, we would be compelled to find the surgical procedure involved here an unreasonable intrusion into defendant’s body.