People v. Haeussler

• Decision Date: 07 July 1953
• Docket Number: Cr. 5391
• Citation: 260 P.2d 8,41 Cal.2d 252
• Parties: PEOPLE v. HAEUSSLER.
• Court: California Supreme Court

Page 8

260 P.2d 8

41 Cal.2d 252

PEOPLE v. HAEUSSLER.

Cr. 5391.

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.

July 7, 1953.

Rehearing Denied July 28, 1953.

Cornwall & Westwick, Santa Barbara, for appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Frank Richards, Dep. Atty. Gen., and Roy A. Gustafson, Dist. Atty., and Donald L. Benton, Dep. Dist. Atty., Ventura, for respondent.

EDMONDS, Justice.

Marion Joan Haeussler was tried before a jury upon charges of manslaughter in the driving of a vehicle, Pen.Code, § 192, subd. 3, and of committing an unlawful act while driving a vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor. Vehicle Code, § 501. Following her conviction on both counts, the imposition of sentence was suspended and she was admitted to probation. By section 1237 of the Penal Code, an order granting probation is a 'final judgment of conviction' for the purpose of appeal.

At about 1:00 a. m., a Buick convertible automobile operated by Mrs. Haeussler collided with a Mercury sedan driven by Vernon Lovelace in which Edward Amsel and Wayne Goff were riding. Amsel was killed and Lovelace and Goff were injured. Mrs. Haeussler also sustained injuries.

The accident occurred on a level highway about 20 feet wide with two lanes. Driving west, Lovelace observed the lights of the Buick as it came around a curve, apparently in the wrong lane. The car continued its course, the lights remaining undimmed. In an attempt to avoid a collision, he applied his brakes and swerved sharply to his left. Mrs. Haeussler's car struck the right side of the Mercury.

An officer of the California Highway Patrol, who arrived at the scene of the accident a few minutes later, inspected the automobiles and took measurements of the skid marks on the pavement. At the trial and over objection, he gave his opinion of the point of impact as being in the westbound lane, about 21 inches from the center line. He also testified that there was an odor of alcohol on Mrs. Haeussler's breath.

The injured persons were taken to an emergency hospital. There, while Mrs. Haeussler was unconscious, an attendant withdrew from her arm five cubic centimeters of blood. Four of these were used to type her blood for a transfusion. The remainder was given to a laboratory technician for analysis.

Objections to the technician's testimony concerning his findings were overruled. He stated that the alcohol content of the blood was about .180 per cent. A medical expert testified that intoxication may occur when the amount of alcohol in the blood is between .050 and .150 per cent, but all individuals whose blood contains alcohol in an amount greater than the latter figure are unable to drive safely. According to his estimate, the alcohol content of Mrs. Haeussler's blood at the time of the accident was about .215 per cent.

As grounds for a reversal of the judgment, Mrs. Haeussler claims that the admission of testimony concerning the results of the blood test taken without her consent deprived her of due process of law. Other contentions are that the trial court erred in permitting a mechanic to state his opinion in regard to the speedometer reading of one of the cars and in admitting the highway patrolman's opinion testimony concerning the pointof impact. She also argues that he court erred in its rulings upon instructions to the jury. Finally, she asserts, the trial was conducted in a manner which favored the prosecution.

Mrs. Haeussler bases her claim of a denial of due process upon Rochin v. People of California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183. In the Rochin case, the record showed that police officers, in search of narcotics, invaded the defendant's room without a warrant. Seeing Rochin put two capsules into his mouth, the officers 'jumped upon' him and atttempted to remove the objects. Unsuccessful, they took him, handcuffed, to a hospital where, by means of a tube, an emetic was injected into his stomach, causing him to vomit the capsules. Upon analysis, they were found to contain morphine.

In a trial upon the charge of unlawfully possessing narcotics, Health and Safety Code, § 11500, the capsules were the chief evidence against Rochin. The United States Supreme Court reversed the judgment of conviction, saying: 'we are compelled to conclude that the proceedings by which this conviction was obtained do more than offend some fastidious squeamishness or private sentimentalism about combatting crime too energetically. This is conduct that shocks the conscience. Illegally breaking into the privacy of the petitioner, the struggle to open his mouth and remove what was there, the forcible extraction of his stomach's contents this course of proceeding by agents of government to obtain evidence is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities. They are methods too close to the rach and the screw to permit of constitutional differentiation.' 342 U.S. at page 172, 72 S.Ct. at page 209, 96 L.Ed. 183.

Counsel for Mrs. Haeussler reads the Rochin decision as holding that any taking of evidence, by force, from the person of a defendant without his consent violates due process. In the present case, it is said, such force consisted of puncturing her skin with a needle to withdraw blood. But even if the decision does not condemn all forcible taking of real evidence, the argument continues, it precludes the use of any which is obtained by a forcible entry into the defendant's body.

The court in the Rochin case approved prior decisions which declare that due process, as that term is used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not embody all of the rights enumerated in the first eight amendments, but only those immunities which are 'so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental' or are 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty'. 342 U.S. at page 169, 72 S.Ct. at page 208.

That the privilege against self-incrimination is not one of the immunities implicit in due process was decided in Twining v. State of New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. 97, and reaffirmed in Adamson v. People of State of California, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 91 L.Ed. 1903. However, the privilege is guaranteed by the Constitution of this State, which declares that '(n)o person shall * * * be compelled in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself'. Cal.Const. Art. I, sec. 13. Reviewing the scope and purpose of that provision, this court said in People v. Trujillo, 32 Cal.2d 105, 194 P.2d 681, 'Wigmore, in an exhaustive and scholarly discussion of the history and policy behind the provision of the Federal Constitution, which is substantially the same as the California mandate, concludes that the object of the protection 'is the employment of legal process to extract from the person's own lips an admission of his guilt, which will thus take the place of other evidence * * *.

"In other words, it is not merely any and every compulsion that is the kernel of the privilege, in history and in the constitutional definitions, but testimonial compulsion." 32 Cal.2d at page 112, 194 P.2d at page 685.

This statement of the rule is consistent with that of the United States Supreme Court, Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 31 S.Ct. 2, 54 L.Ed. 1021; United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 64 S.Ct. 1248, 88 L.Ed. 1542, and the courts of other jurisdictions which, in analogous factual situations, have concluded there was no violation of the privilege. State v. Green, 121 S.C. 230, 114 S.E. 317 (placing defendant's foot in footprint found at scene of crime); State v. McLaughlin, 138 La. 958, 70 So. 925 (scrapings taken from beneath accused's fingernails); Biggs v. State, 201 Ind. 200, 167 N.E. 129, 64 A.L.R. 1085 (removing defendant's shoes to match footprints); State v. Aspara, 113 La. 940, 37 So. 883 (removing defendant's clothing for comparisons and tests); Ash v. State, 139 Tex.Cr.R. 420, 141 S.W.2d 341 (giving accused an enema to recover swallowed jewelry); United States v. Kelly, 2 Cir., 55 F.2d 67, 83 A.L.R. 122 (taking fingerprints of accused); see annotation 164 A.L.R. 967; Inbau, Self Incrimination (1950).

Evidence is not obtained by testamentary compulsion where it consists of a test of blood taken from an accused. It is not a communication from the accused but real evidence of the ultimate fact in issue the defendant's physical condition. State v. Cram, 176 Or. 577, 160 P.2d 283, 289, 164 A.L.R. 952; State v. Sturtevant, 96 N.H. 99, 70 A.2d 909, 911-912; State v. Ayres, 70 Idaho 18, 211 P.2d 142, 144; State v. Alexander, 7 N.J. 585, 83 A.2d 441, 445; Block v. People, 125 Colo. 36, 240 P.2d 512, 515-516, certiorari denied 343 U.S. 978, 72 S.Ct. 1076, 96 L.Ed. 1370.

Similarly, real evidence obtained from a defendant's stomach by use of an emetic is not violative of the privilege against self-incrimination. Despite contrary suggestions, the majority of the court in the Rochin case did not rest its reversal of the conviction upon that ground. (See the concurring opinions of Justices Black and Douglas, 342 U.S. 165, 174, 177, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183.) Nor did the court overrule or limit earlier cases which define the scope of the privilege or exclude that privilege from the operation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, no changes in the rules stated and applied in those cases may be presumed.

More pertinent to the present inquiry is the prohibition against unlawful searches and seizures stated in the Fourth Amendment to the federal Constitution and in the California Constitution. Article I, section 19. In Wolf v. People of State of Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782, the applicability of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to that prohibition was considered. Freedom from unlawful intrusion was held to be basic to a free society and, being implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, enforceable against the states through the due process clause.

In prosecutions in the federal...