Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1966

Schmerber v. California

384 U.S. 757 | 86 S. Ct. 1826 | 16 L. Ed. 2d 908 | 1966 U.S. LEXIS 1129

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Takeaway

In short, this case permits a warrantless, nonconsensual blood draw after a drunk-driving arrest when probable cause, exigent circumstances from alcohol dissipation, and medically reasonable procedures make the search reasonable; the Fifth Amendment does not bar the resulting physical evidence.

Background

After a late-night automobile accident, police observed signs that Armando Schmerber had been drinking, including the odor of liquor on his breath and bloodshot, watery eyes. Schmerber was taken to a hospital for accident-related injuries. An officer arrested him there for driving while under the influence and advised him of his right to remain silent and to obtain counsel.

At the officer's direction, and despite Schmerber's refusal on advice of counsel, a physician withdrew a blood sample in the hospital. Chemical testing showed a blood-alcohol level indicating intoxication. The trial court admitted the test result, and Schmerber was convicted of misdemeanor drunk driving. The Appellate Department of the California Superior Court affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and affirmed the conviction.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the compelled withdrawal of Schmerber's blood violated due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Holding

No. Under the circumstances, the blood draw did not offend due process.

Reasoning

The Court treated Breithaupt v. Abram as controlling on the due-process question. Breithaupt upheld the use of blood-test evidence where a physician drew blood from an unconscious accident victim in a hospital through medically accepted procedures.

Schmerber's express objection did not make the procedure so brutal or offensive that it violated the fundamental fairness protected by due process. The Court emphasized that the test was performed by a physician, in a hospital, in a simple and medically acceptable manner. It reserved different questions for police-initiated violence, unreasonable force, or disregard of a reasonable request for another form of testing.

Issue #2

Whether compelling Schmerber to provide a blood sample and admitting the test result violated the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Holding

No. The privilege protects against compelled testimonial or communicative evidence, not compelled production of physical evidence such as a blood sample.

Reasoning

Malloy v. Hogan had made the Fifth Amendment privilege applicable to the States, so the Court had to decide whether the compelled blood draw made Schmerber a witness against himself. The police order and Schmerber's submission over objection were compulsion, but compulsion alone was not enough to establish a Fifth Amendment violation.

The privilege is directed at compelled testimony or communication. Drawing on Holt v. United States and the established distinction between testimonial evidence and real or physical evidence, the Court explained that the government may generally compel such identifying or bodily evidence as fingerprints, photographs, measurements, handwriting or voice exemplars, and physical displays.

Schmerber's blood was physical evidence. Its evidentiary value came from independent chemical analysis, not from anything he said, wrote, or otherwise communicated. His testimonial capacities played no role in the test, and therefore the blood-alcohol result was not barred by the Self-Incrimination Clause.

The Court cautioned that the testimonial-versus-physical-evidence distinction may be difficult in other settings. For example, a test that seeks to determine guilt from physiological reactions during interrogation could implicate the Fifth Amendment. Likewise, the State might have to forgo any incriminating statements produced as a byproduct of compelling a test.

Issue #3

Whether police violated Schmerber's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by ordering the blood test after he refused on counsel's advice.

Holding

No. Counsel's mistaken advice that Schmerber could invoke the Fifth Amendment did not create a right to refuse the test.

Reasoning

Schmerber's narrow claim was that the police should have honored his lawyer's advice that he refuse the blood draw. But because the Fifth Amendment gave him no right to refuse the collection of this physical evidence, he acquired no additional right simply because counsel advised otherwise.

The case did not present a claim that police prevented counsel from helping Schmerber exercise an actual legal right. The Court therefore rejected the Sixth Amendment argument without deciding broader questions about counsel's role during investigative procedures.

Issue #4

Whether the warrantless, nonconsensual blood draw was an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Holding

No. The blood draw was a Fourth Amendment search, but it was reasonable because police had probable cause, exigent circumstances justified proceeding without a warrant, and the test was conducted reasonably.

Reasoning

The Court held that a compelled blood test is plainly subject to the Fourth Amendment. It entails both a seizure of the person and an intrusion into the body, and the Amendment protects personal privacy and dignity against unjustified state invasions.

Police had probable cause to arrest Schmerber for driving under the influence. The officer had observed the accident, smelled alcohol on Schmerber's breath, and noticed bloodshot, watery, glassy eyes both at the scene and again at the hospital.

Ordinarily, the substantial intrusion of a bodily search calls for a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate. Here, however, exigent circumstances justified the officer's decision to proceed without one: alcohol in the bloodstream naturally diminishes over time, and delay had already resulted from transporting Schmerber to the hospital and investigating the accident. There was no practical time to secure a warrant before relevant evidence dissipated.

The method of obtaining the evidence was also reasonable. A blood test was an effective and commonplace means of measuring blood-alcohol content; the sample was small, the ordinary risks and pain were minimal, and Schmerber did not claim a medical, religious, or similar objection requiring a different method. A physician drew the blood in a hospital according to accepted medical practice.

The Court stressed the narrowness of its ruling. It approved only a minor bodily intrusion under the specific facts presented, not more substantial medical intrusions or procedures conducted by nonmedical personnel or in unsafe conditions.

Concurrences

Justice Harlan

Reasoning

Justice Harlan, joined by Justice Stewart, agreed that the blood test involved no testimonial compulsion and therefore did not violate the Fifth Amendment. He would have gone further: in his view, apart from the absence of testimonial compulsion, compelled physical evidence of this kind does not implicate the Fifth Amendment at all.

Dissents

Chief Justice Warren

Reasoning

Chief Justice Warren would have reversed for the reasons stated in his dissent in Breithaupt v. Abram. He regarded forced extraction of blood as incompatible with due process, even when the procedure was medically routine.

Justice Black

Reasoning

Justice Black, joined by Justice Douglas, agreed that the Fifth Amendment applies to the States but rejected the majority's testimonial-versus-physical-evidence distinction. In his view, forcing a person to surrender blood so the State can use its contents to convict him is compelling that person to furnish evidence against himself.

He argued that the blood analysis was both communicative and testimonial in the relevant constitutional sense: it supplied information to the court and jury establishing intoxication. The majority's narrower use of those terms, he contended, improperly reduced the Fifth Amendment's protection.

Justice Black found the majority's approach especially inconsistent with Boyd v. United States. Boyd protected a person from being compelled to produce incriminating papers; Black saw no principled basis for protecting papers while allowing the State to extract a person's blood for incriminating analysis.

In his view, the privilege against self-incrimination should receive the broad, protective construction traditionally given Bill of Rights guarantees. The majority's distinction, he warned, furnished a tool for further erosion of constitutional protections.

Justice Douglas

Reasoning

Justice Douglas adhered to his prior dissent in Breithaupt and stressed the constitutional right of privacy recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect a zone of personal privacy, and he regarded forcible bloodletting as an especially clear invasion of that protected sphere.

Justice Fortas

Reasoning

Justice Fortas would have held that the compelled blood draw violated the privilege against self-incrimination. He also concluded that due process independently barred the State, acting as prosecutor, from extracting blood over an accused person's protest.

In Justice Fortas's view, forcibly taking blood is an act of violence by the State. The prosecution therefore could not constitutionally commit that act, or use the resulting evidence, to obtain a criminal conviction.