Court Opinion

ID: 9611728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:59:48.227466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:16.445132
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Erickson,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. To uphold the action taken by the police in obtaining the urine sample would be to subvert our entire system of justice. Fraud cannot be the basis of effective law enforcement. Respect for law and order necessarily includes public recognition of the fact that the police will not consciously mislead any person in order to secure evidence. Although Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), would have permitted the forceful taking of a blood sample to prevent the loss of evidence of intoxication, the police could not obtain blood from a person under investigation by misstating the purpose for which the blood sample was taken. Graves v. Beto, 424 F.2d 524 (5th Cir. 1970). See also, Goodman v. United States, 285 F.Supp. 245 (D.C. Cal. 1968), where corporate books and records obtained by fraud and deception were suppressed.
To permit the police to utilize a treating doctor and a nurse as disguised agents of the police is to permit a fraud. The defendant’s doctor and his nurse were agents of the police and obtained the urine sample under the guise of assisting in diagnosis and treatment.
For the reasons stated, I would suppress the sample and all tests made from the sample.
Mr. Chief Justice Pringle and Mr. Justice Groves have authorized me to say that they join me in this dissent.