Breithaupt v. Abram

• Decision Date: 25 February 1957
• Docket Number: No. 69,69
• Parties: Paul H. BREITHAUPT, Petitioner, v. Morris ABRAM, Warden
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

352 U.S. 432

77 S.Ct. 408

1 L.Ed.2d 448

Paul H. BREITHAUPT, Petitioner,

v Morris ABRAM, Warden.

No. 69.

Argued Dec. 12 and 13, 1956.

Decided Feb. 25, 1957.

Mr. F. Gordon Shermack, Santa Fe, N.M., for the petitioner.

Messrs.Richard H. Robinson and Walter R. Kegel, Santa Fe, N.M., for respondent.

Mr. Justice CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, while driving a pickup truck on the highways of New Mexico, was involved in a collision with a passenger car. Three occupants of the car were killed and petitioner was seriously injured. A pint whiskey bottle, almost empty, was found in the glove compartment of the pickup truck. Petitioner was taken to a hospital and while he was lying unconscious in the emergency room the smell of liquor was detected on his breath. A state patrolman requested that a sample of petitioner's blood be taken. An attending physician, while petitioner was unconscious, withdrew a sample of about 20 cubic centimeters of blood by use of a hypodermic needle. This sample was delivered to the patrolman and subsequent laboratory analysis showed this blood to contain about .17% alcohol.

Petitioner was thereafter charged with involuntary manslaughter. Testimoney regarding the blood test and its result was admitted into evidence at trial over petitioner's objection. This included testimony of an expert that a person with .17% alcohol in his blood was under the influence of intoxicating liquor. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced for involuntary manslaughter. He did not appeal the conviction. Subsequently, however, he sought release from his imprisonment by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court of New Mexico.¹ That court, after argument, denied the writ. 1954 58 N.M. 385, 271 P.2d 827. Petitioner contends that his conviction, based on the result of the involuntary blood test, deprived him of his liberty without that due process of law guaranteed him by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. We granted certiorari, 351 U.S. 906, 76 S.Ct. 699, 100 L.Ed. 1442, to determine whether the requirements of the Due Process Clause, as it concerns state criminal proceedings, necessitate the invalidation of the conviction.

It has been clear since Weeks v. United States, 1914, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, that evidence obtained in violation of rights protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution must be excluded in federal criminal prosecutions. There is argument on behalf of petitioner that the evidence used here, the result of the blood test, was obtained in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the taking was the result of an unreasonable search and seizure violative of the Fourth Amendment. Likewise, he argues that by way of the Fourteenth Amendment there has been a violation of the Fifth Amendment in that introduction of the test result compelled him to be a witness against himself. Petitioner relies on the proposition that 'the generative principles' of the Bill of Rights should extend the protections of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to his case through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But Wolf v. Colorado, 1949, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782, answers this contention in the negative. See also Twining v. New Jersey, 1908, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97; Palko v. Connecticut, 1937, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288; Irvine v. California, 1954, 347 U.S. 128, 74 S.Ct. 381, 98 L.Ed. 561. New Mexico has rejected, as it may, the exclusionary rule set forth in Weeks, supra. State v. Dillon, 1929, 34 N.M. 366, 281 P. 474, 88 A.L.R. 340. Therefore, the rights petitioner claims afford no aid to him here for the fruits of the violations, if any, are admissible in the State's prosecution.

Petitioner's remaining and primary assault on his conviction is not so easily unhorsed. He urges that the conduct of the state officers here offends that 'sense of justice' of which we spoke in Rochin v. California, 1952, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183. In that case state officers broke into the home of the accused and observed him place something in his mouth. The officers forced open his mouth after considerable struggle in an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve whatever was put there. A stomach pump was later forcibly used and among the matter extracted from his stomach were found narcotic pills. As we said there, 'this course of proceeding by agents of government to obtain evidence is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities.' Id., 342 U.S. at page 172, 72 S.Ct. at page 209. We set aside the conviction because such conduct 'shocked the conscience' and was so 'brutal' and 'offensive' that it did not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency. We therefore found that the conduct was offensive to due process. But we see nothing comparable here to the facts in Rochin.

Basically the distinction rests on the fact that there is nothing 'brutal' or 'offensive' in the taking of a sample of blood when done, an in this case, under the protective eye of a physician. To be sure, the driver here was unconscious when the blood was taken, but the absence of conscious consent, without more, does not necessarily render the taking a violation of a constitutional right;² and certainly the test as administered here would not be considered offensive by even the most delicate. Furthermore, due process is not measured by the yardstick of personal reaction or the sphygmogram of the most sensitive person, but by that whole community sense of 'decency and fairness' that has been woven by common experience into the fabric of acceptable conduct. It is on this bedrock that this Court has established the concept of due process. The blood test procedure has become routine in our everyday life. It is a ritual for those going into the military service as well as those applying for marriage licenses. Many colleges require such tests before permitting entrance and literally millions of us have voluntarily gone through the same, though a longer, routine in becoming blood donors. Likewise, we note that a majority of our States have either enacted statutes in some form authorizing tests of this nature or permit findings so obtained to be admitted in evidence.³ We therefore con- clude that a blood test taken by a skilled technician is not such 'conduct that shocks the conscience,' Rochin, supra, 342 U.S. at page 172, 72 S.Ct. at page 209, nor such a method of obtaining evidence that it offends a 'sense of justice,' Brown v. Mississippi, 1936, 297 U.S. 278, 285—286, 56 S.Ct. 461, 464—465, 80 L.Ed. 682.⁴ This is not to say that the indiscriminate taking of blood under different conditions or by those not competent to do so may not amount to such 'brutality' as would come under the Rochin rule. The chief law-enforcement officer of New Mexico, while at the Bar of this Court, assured us that every proper medical precaution is afforded an accused from whom blood is taken.⁵

The test upheld here is not attacked on the ground of any basis deficiency or of injudicious application, but admittedly is a scientifically accurate method of detecting alcoholic content in the blood, thus furnishing an exact measure upon which to base a decision as to intoxication. Modern community living requires modern scientific methods of crime detection lest the public go unprotected. The increasing slaughter on our highways, most of which should be avoidable, now reaches the astounding figures only heard of on the battlefield. ⁶ The States, through safety measures, modern scientific methods, and strict enforcement of traffic laws, are using all reasonable means to make automobile driving less dangerous.⁷

As against the right of an individual that his person be held inviolable, even against so slight an intrusion as is involved in applying a blood test of the kind to which millions of Americans submit as a matter of course nearly every day, must be set the interests of society in the scientific determination of intoxication, one of the great causes of the mortal hazards of the road. And the more so since the test likewise may establish innocence, thus affording protection against the treachery of judgment based on one or more of the senses. Furthermore, since our criminal law is to no small extent justified by the assumption of deterrence, the individual's right to immunity from such invasion of the body as is involved in a properly safeguarded blood test is far outweighed by the value of its deterrent effect due to public realization that the issue of driving while under the influence of alcohol can often by this method be taken out of the confusion of conflicting contentions.

For these reasons the judgment is affirmed.

Affirmed.

Mr. Chief Justice WARREN, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join, dissenting.

The judgment in this case should be reversed if Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183, is to retain its vitality and stand as more than an instance of personal revulsion against particular police methods. I cannot agree with the Court when it says, 'we see nothing comparable here to the facts in Rochin.' It seems to me the essential elements of the cases are the same and the same result should follow.

There is much in the Court's opinion concerning the hazards on our nation's highways, the efforts of the States to enforce the traffic laws and the necessity for the use of modern scientific methods in the detection of crime. Everybody can agree with these sentiments, and yet they do not help us particularly in determining whether this case can be distinguished from Rochin. That case grew out of police efforts to curb the narcotics traffic, in which there is surely a state interest of at least as great magnitude as the interest in highway law enforcement. Nor does the fact that many States sanction the use of blood test evidence differentiate the cases. At the...