Court Opinion

ID: 9572787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:44:36.982229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:18.716540
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Presiding Judge,
specially concurring in results:
In Cole v. Parr, 595 P.2d 1349 (Okl.Cr.1979), this Court considered the balance to be struck between the State’s need to analyze speciments from those accused of criminal conduct and the Fourth Amendment’s protection of personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State. We held that justice could best be served if the State was first required to obtain and analyze samples taken from the body of the victim and the scene of the crime. Aftér this is accomplished, the State must demonstrate to a magistrate at an evidentiary hearing that probable cause exists to believe that there is a rational connection joining the samples within the possession of the State and the specimens sought of the defendant. Only then did we consider probable cause to be sufficiently established to override the Fourth Amendment’s protections.
In the instant case the State failed to meet the guidelines established in Cole. The decision of Cole v. Parr, supra, however, was not rendered until after the specimens of this defendant had been seized and the appellant failed to come to this Court seeking a writ of prohibition against the State’s procedure as did the defendant Cole. In light of this and the other overwhelming evidence against the appellant, I concur in the majority’s decision not to reverse on this basis but dissent to the abandonment of this Court’s unanimous holding in Cole v. Parr, supra.