Court Opinion

ID: 9685209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:26:13.787351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.330729
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The majority broadly extends the rationale of Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 36 L.Ed.2d 900 (1973), to excuse one of the “stringently limited conditions” imposed by Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 772, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1836, 16 L.Ed.2d 908, 920 (1966), that an arrest precede the uncon-sented taking of blood from a suspect.1 Schmerber considered several constitutional challenges to compelled blood-alcohol testing, the most serious being the claim that such a search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection of “personal privacy and dignity.” 384 U.S. 767, 86 S.Ct. 1834, 16 L.Ed.2d 917. In upholding the procedure employed, the United States Supreme Court repeatedly referred to the Suspect’s prior arrest, finding the warrant-less detention and testing validly incident thereto, and justified by the rapid dissipation of the alcohol in the blood. The opinion concluded:
“ * * * 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.” 384 U.S. 772, 86 S.Ct. 1836, 16 L.Ed.2d 920.
In contrast, Cupp v. Murphy, supra, involved fingernail scrapings taken from a suspect who had voluntarily gone to a police station for questioning. Mr. Justice Stewart, writing for the majority, noted the “very limited intrusion” undertaken incident to the station house detention and emphasized the limited breadth of the decision: “[W]e do not hold that a full Chimel [v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) (recognizing an exception to the warrant requirement when a search is incident to a valid arrest)] search would have been justified in this case without a formal arrest and without a warrant.” 412 U.S. 296, 93 S.Ct. 2004, 36 L.Ed.2d 906. *75That the arrest requirement of Schmerber- type intrusions was unchanged is clear from this reference in United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 8, 93 S.Ct. 764, 769, 35 L.Ed.2d 67, 76 (1973), decided in the same term with Cupp v. Murphy, supra, and also written by Mr. Justice Stewart:
“As the Court made clear in Schmer-ber, supra, the obtaining of physical evidence from a person involves a potential Fourth Amendment violation at two different levels — the ‘seizure’ of the ‘person’ necessary to bring him into contact with government agents, see Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969), and the subsequent search for and seizure of the evidence. In Schmerber, we found the initial seizure of the accused justified as a lawful arrest, and the subsequent seizure of the blood sample from his body reasonable in light of the exigent circumstances." (Italics supplied in part.)
The requirement that an arrest precede the unconsented extraction of blood has been almost uniformly applied by a majority of the states,2 and consistently assumed by our own. State v. Hansen, 296 Minn. 42, 206 N.W.2d 352 (1973); State v. Capelle, 285 Minn. 205, 172 N.W.2d 556 (1969). Arrest is no mere formality, but designed to provide an accused with “full warning of official suspicion”, Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 296, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 2004, 36 L.Ed.2d 900, 906, as well as requiring a determination of probable cause prior to obtaining additional evidence from the search.3 Failure to require an arrest, even of the “functionally unconscious”, is an invitation to abuse and the retrospective application of newly found probable cause.
Finally, I am not convinced that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against procedures which offend our “sense of justice”, Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952), while apparently insufficient to prohibit the un-consented taking of a suspect’s blood, Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432, 77 S.Ct. 408, 1 L.Ed.2d 448 (1957), is not strongly interrelated with the “stringently limited conditions” incident to the “reasonable” search upheld by Schmerber v. California, supra. See, Note, 1971 Duke L.J. 601.
*76I believe that requiring the police to make a lawful arrest prior to taking the suspect into custody for a blood test should be the minimal constitutional standard. Accordingly, I dissent from the opinion of the court.

. Not only does the majority stop short of expressly retaining the arrest requirement for more lucid suspects, footnote 4, supra, but it introduces a distinction which is practically difficult and theoretically unprincipled. The defendant here was conscious, his belligerence and disorientation not atypical of an intoxicated accident victim. Under such circumstances, a determination of whether a suspect “appears capable of understanding and communicating with the arresting officer” is a difficult question of degree at the time, one which may be impossible to fairly examine in later judicial proceedings. Moreover, by basing the decision on Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291, 93 S.Ct. 2000, 36 L.Ed.2d 900 (1973), where the suspect was clearly aware and apprehensive of the situation, the conscious/unconscious distinction is obviously vulnerable to later erosion.

. See, generally, Holland v. Parker, 354 F.Supp. 196 (D.S.D.1973); Layland v. State, 535 P.2d 1043 (Alaska 1975); People v. Superior Court of Kern County, 6 Cal.3d 757, 100 Cal.Rptr. 281, 493 P.2d 1145 (1972); State v. Towry, 26 Conn.Sup. 35, 210 A.2d 455 (1965); State v. Howard, 193 Neb. 45, 225 N.W.2d 391 (1975); State v. Davis, 108 N.H. 45, 226 A.2d 873 (1967); State v. Richerson, 87 N.M. 437, 535 P.2d 644 (N.Mex.Ct.App.1975), certiorari denied, 87 N.M. 450, 535 P.2d 657 (1975); People v. Butor, 75 Misc.2d 558, 348 N.Y.S.2d 89 (Cty.Ct.1973); People v. Young, 42 Misc.2d 540, 248 N.Y.S.2d 287 (Cty.Ct.1964); State v. Cruz, 21 Utah 2d 406, 446 P.2d 307 (1968); State v. Wetherell, 82 Wash.2d 865, 514 P.2d 1069 (1973); State v. Kroening, 274 Wis. 266, 79 N.W.2d 810 (1956); State v. Doe, 78 Wis.2d 161, 254 N.W.2d 210 (1977). Compare State v. Brunner, 211 Kan. 596, 507 P.2d 233 (1973), with State v. Gordon, 219 Kan. 643, 549 P.2d 886 (1976).
See, also, State v. Ball, 123 Vt. 26, 179 A.2d 466 1962), and State v. Byers, 224 S.E.2d 726 (W.Va.Ct.App.1976), suppressing solely on statutory grounds.
See, also, Commonwealth v. Quarles, 229 Pa.Super. 363, 324 A.2d 452 (1974), requiring arrest before transporting a suspect.
Contra, People v. Fidler, 175 Colo. 90, 485 P.2d 725 (1971); DeVaney v. State, 259 Ind. 483, 288 N.E.2d 732 (1972); State v. Findlay, 259 Iowa 733, 145 N.W.2d 650 (1966).

. There are also several policies against a rule that probable cause to arrest is a ground for a warrantless search. Many courts forthrightly object to developments in the law which would tend to allow random police searches; the requirements of a warrant or contemporaneous arrest are viewed as essential protection against dragnet searches. Moreover, such a rule would kindle judicial fears that the reason an arrest was not made contemporaneously with the search was because the probable cause was so dubious that the police wished to bolster their case against the suspect before arresting him. The requirement of either a warrant or an arrest forces the police to make a commitment and discourages “fishing expeditions”; at the same time, it makes available a record of police conduct for use in determining whether there has been an illegal search or seizure. A further, unexpressed fear underlying appellate court attitudes in this area may be that the fruits of a search which proved guilt would be difficult for the trial court to disregard when determining the question of original probable cause to make the arrest. Note, 18 Stanford L.Rev. 243, 252.