Breithaupt v. Abram

Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U.S. 432 (1957), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that involuntary blood samples, taken by a skilled technician to determine intoxication, do not violate substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This case was only the second time the Court considered whether police could forcibly enter inside a suspect's body to extract evidence. Writing for a 6–3 majority, Justice Tom C. Clark argued that blood tests were necessary as a matter of public policy to ensure traffic safety on roads and highways, and that "modern community living requires modern scientific methods of crime detection." Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice William O. Douglas both wrote dissenting opinions in which they argued that the involuntary blood sample taken in this case was "repulsive" and violated substantive due process.

Background

The constitutionality of searches inside the body

In the 1950s the Supreme Court of the United States addressed for the first time whether the constitution permits law enforcement to forcibly extract evidence from inside the human body. The first case to address this question, Rochin v. California, set strict limits on the power of police to remove evidence from inside the human body. In Rochin, police officers broke into the home of an individual who was suspected of selling narcotics and observed him place several small capsules into his mouth. After a brief struggle, officers attempted to force open the suspect's mouth, but were unable to retrieve the capsules. Officers then handcuffed the suspect and transported him to a local hospital, where "a doctor forced an emetic solution through a tube into Rochin's stomach against his will." Through this stomach pumping, officers discovered two capsules containing morphine.