# Schmerber v. California > Supreme Court of the United States · June 20, 1966 · 384 U.S. 757 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423259 ## Case - **Full name:** Schmerber v. California - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 20, 1966 - **Citations:** 384 U.S. 757; 86 S. Ct. 1826; 16 L. Ed. 2d 908; 1966 U.S. LEXIS 1129 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Douglas - **Judges:** Foetas, Black, Brennan, Harlan, Warren, Douglas, Stewart - **Cited by:** 5,045 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by State v. Syx, 190 Ohio App. 3d 845 (2010). - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 6 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423259 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - stating that the “compulsory 17 administration of a blood test . . . plainly involves the broadly conceived reach of a 18 search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment[,]” and also explaining that because 19 “[s]earch warrants are ordinarily required for searches of dwellings,… - stating that the “compulsory administration of a blood test . . . plainly involves the broadly conceived reach of a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment[,]” and also explaining that because “[sjearch warrants are ordinarily required for searches of dwellings,. . . abs… - holding blood sample to test for alcohol content not testimonial, and noting "both federal and state courts have usually held that it offers no protection against compulsion to submit to fingerprinting, photographing, or measurements, to write or speak for identification, to a… - stating that in deciding whether an intrusive body search is permissible, the court must consider whether the officer had a clear indication that incriminating evidence would be found, whether exigent circumstances existed if no warrant was obtained, and whether the officer ex… - finding “the attempt to secure evidence of blood-alcohol content” without a warrant was reasonable incident to Schmerber’s arrest, given the officer “might reasonably have believed that he was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, unde… ## Opinion text *778 Mr. Justice Douglas, dissenting. I adhere to the views of The Chief Justice in his dissent in Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 U. S. 432, 440 , and to the views I stated in my dissent in that case (id., 442) and add only a word. We are dealing with the right of privacy which, since the Breithaupt case, we have held to be within the penumbra of some specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 . Thus, the Fifth Amendment marks “a zone of privacy” which the Government may not force a person to surrender. Id., 484 . Likewise the Fourth Amendment recognizes that right when it guarantees the right of the people to be *779 secure “in their persons.” Ibid. No clearer invasion of this right of privacy can be imagined than forcible bloodletting of the kind involved here. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423259. Public record. Not legal advice.