Court Opinion

ID: 9560521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:50:25.576055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:06.072278
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Justice.
1. The issue in a habeas corpus proceeding is the legality of the present confinement of the petitioner. See Lewis v. Smith, 227 Ga. 220 (179 SE2d 745); Patterson v. Smith, 227 Ga. 170 (179 SE2d 247). There being no evidence submitted showing that the confinement of the defendant was illegal per se and there being no evidence that his confinement was cruel and unusual, the judgment of the trial court denying the writ of habeas corpus was not error.
2. The remaining issues in the case all turn upon the question of whether it would, under the facts in this case, violate the rights of the defendant for the State to remove the bullet from his body.
Under the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (86 SC 1826, 16 LE2d 908), the removal of the bullet would not be a violation of any of the defendant’s rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The court in the Schmerber case dealt extensively with each assertion made by the defendant here and concluded that blood could be taken for chemical analysis under the circumstances of that case, *515that the Fifth Amendment refers to the right "to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will” (p. 763), and that the Fourth Amendment, dealing with unreasonable search and seizure, did not prohibit the extraction of blood through an opening in the body made with the State’s needle by a physician in a medical environment under circumstances where probable cause existed. In concluding its opinion it was stated: "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.”
Based upon the uncontradicted evidence in this case the removal of the bullet from the defendant’s body would amount to a minor intrusion into his person and would not be violative of his rights under the Constitution of the United States. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court overruling these contentions of the defendant was not error.
3. We now reach the question of whether the defendant’s rights under the Constitution of the State of Georgia and statutory law would be violated by the removal of the bullet. ^
As counsel for the defendant states, Georgia has long granted more protection to its citizens than has the United States and that while the States cannot grant less protection they can grant more.
Article I, Section I, Paragraph VI of the Constitution of 1945 states: "No person shall be compelled to give testimony tending in any manner to criminate himself.” Code Ann. § 2-106.
The Act of 1962 (Code Ann. § 38-416) provides: "No person, who shall be charged in any criminal proceeding with the commission of any indictable offense or any offense punishable on summary conviction, shall be compellable to *516give evidence for or against himself.” Ga. L. 1866, pp. 138, 139; 1962, pp. 133, 135.
While the language in the United States Constitution has long been construed to be limited to "testimony,” the Georgia Constitution has been construed to limit the State from forcing the individual to present evidence, oral or real.
In one of the latest opinions of this court on this subject it was held in a full bench opinion: "This leaves for decision only whether or not 'testimony’ as found in the Constitution embraces all kinds of evidence? Fortunately, this court has many times decided that question by holding that the word 'testimony’ means all types of evidence as the following decisions will illustrate. In Day v. State, 63 Ga. 667 (2), it was said: 'Evidence that a witness forcibly placed defendant’s foot in certain tracks near the scene of the burglary, and that they were of the same size, is not admissible. A defendant can not be compelled to criminate himself by acts or words.’ At page 669, the clause of the Constitution is quoted, and then it is said: 'Nor can one, by force, compel another, against his consent, to put his foot in a shoe-track for the purpose of using it as evidence against him on the criminal side of the court.’ Dealing with the same facts this court in Elder v. State, 143 Ga. 363 (85 SE 97), followed the ruling in the Day case, supra, and Evans v. State, 106 Ga. 519 (32 SE 659, 71 ASR 276).
"An extensive discussion of this question is found in Calhoun v. State, 144 Ga. 679 (87 SE 893). There the Constitution is quoted and it is then said at page 680: Its prototype is found in the maxim of the common law, nemo tenetur seipsum accusare, that no man is bound to accuse himself of any crime or to furnish any evidence to convict himself of any crime; and this was brought by our ancestors to America as a part of their birthright. Marshall v. Riley, 7 Ga. 367, 370.’ It was then said at page 681 that: 'The constitutional guaranty protects one from being compelled to furnish evidence against himself, either in the form of oral confessions or incriminating admissions of an involuntary character, or of doing an act against his will which is *517incriminating in its nature.’ . . . That opinion recognized the rule then of force that evidence illegally obtained by search was admissible but said it was distinctly different from the rule that any evidence produced by the accused under compulsion was inadmissible.
"The foregoing and many more decisions of this court had construed the word 'testimony’ to embrace any evidence when the identical clause containing this word was written into the 1945 Constitution. The universal rule of construction requires a holding that the framers of that Constitution intended for it to have the meaning theretofore given it by construction.” Aldrich v. State, 220 Ga. 132, 134 (137 SE2d 463).
How does the judgment in this case ordering the removal of the bullet compare with that in Aldrich and the cases cited therein?
In each of those cases the defendant was required to perform some act, drive a truck upon scales, place his foot in a shoe track, etc., and, as emphasized in that case, the "doing of an act” against his will to incriminate himself.
Under the argument presented by able counsel for the defendant, fingerprints could no longer be taken, photographs or line-ups could not be legal, nor could a prisoner be directed to appear during a trial for identification purposes.
In each instance the prisoner is forced to submit so that evidence may be produced from him, but he is only required to be present and the evidence is adduced by those fingerprinting, photographing or identifying him. In Springer v. State, 121 Ga. 155 (48 SE 907) the forcing of the defendant to "do an act” as compared with "taking evidence from him” was distinguished. You cannot force a defendant to act, but you can, under proper circumstances, produce evidence from his person.
It has long been held that evidence taken from an accused is admissible in Georgia where not compelled by illegal arrest. Compare Evans v. State, 106 Ga. 519 (32 SE 659), where the evidence was not admissible where compelled during illegal arrest; Drake v. State, 75 Ga. 413, *518where clothing taken from the defendant was admissible; Hill v. State, 161 Ga. 188 (129 SE 647), where "beggar lice” were discovered on the underclothes of the accused when he removed his outer clothing while under arrest and such evidence was held admissible; Johns v. State, 180 Ga. 187 (178 SE 707), where shoes were taken from the accused while under arrest and compared with shoe prints; Meriwether v. State, 63 Ga. App. 667 (11 SE2d 816), where the accused was forced to appear in a line-up for the purpose of identification.
In the case sub judice the defendant is forced to submit his body for the purpose of having the evidence removed. He is not forced to himself remove it and therein lies the distinction in this case from the Aldrich case and similar cases.
Having distinguished such cases the last remaining question is whether under the facts in this case the search is reasonable.
The defendant was represented by counsel and a full evidentiary hearing was held to determine probable cause as to the fact of a bullet being imbedded in the defendant’s body and as to whether there was probable cause to believe that it was connected with the murders. This hearing also included evidence as to any danger to the defendant’s life or limb.
It cannot be said that under the evidence adduced that there was not probable cause both as to the fact that the bullet was in the defendant’s body and that it was connected with the murders. Nor can it be said under the uncontradicted evidence of the physician that the trial court was not authorized to find that the defendant’s life and limb would not be harmed by the removal of such bullet.
Under the facts in this case the judgment of the trial court ordering the removal of the bullet in the present case under the direction of the chief surgeon at the Talmadge Memorial Hospital, Augusta, Georgia was not error.
Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court must be affirmed, and the supersedeas previously granted vacated.

*519
Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur, except Gunter, J., who dissents from Division 3 of the opinion and the judgment of affirmance.