# Cupp v. Murphy > Supreme Court of the United States · May 29, 1973 · 412 U.S. 291 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425325 ## Case - **Full name:** Cupp, Penitentiary Superintendent v. Murphy - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** May 29, 1973 - **Citations:** 412 U.S. 291; 93 S. Ct. 2000; 36 L. Ed. 2d 900; 1973 U.S. LEXIS 63 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan - **Judges:** Stewart, Burger, White, Marshall, Blachmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Blackmun, Douglas, Brennan - **Cited by:** 600 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425325 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - explaining that a search that goes “beyond mere physical 12 characteristics . . . constantly exposed to the public . . . constitute[s] the type of severe, though brief, 13 intrusion upon cherished personal security that is subject to constitutional scrutiny” (internal citation… - holding that the "ready destructibility of the evidence" and the suspect's observed efforts to destroy it "justified the police in subjecting him to the very limited search," the scraping of his fingernails, which was "necessary to preserve the highly evanescent evidence they … - holding that, unlike fingerprints and voice or handwriting exemplars, the warrantless search of the defendant's fingernails went beyond mere physical characteristics constantly exposed to the public and constituted the type of intrusion upon personal security that is subject t… - explaining that a search that goes “beyond mere physical characteristics ... constantly exposed to the public ... constitute[s] the type of severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security that is subject to constitutional scrutiny” (internal citation and quota… ## Opinion text *305 MR. Justice Brennan, dissenting in part. Without effecting an arrest, and without first seeking to obtain a search warrant from a magistrate, the police decided to scrape respondent’s fingernails for destructible evidence. In upholding this search, the Court engrafts another, albeit limited, exception on the warrant requirement. Before we take the serious step of legitimating even limited searches merely upon probable cause — without a warrant or as incident to an arrest — we ought first be certain that such probable cause in fact existed. Here, as my Brother Douglas convincingly demonstrates “[w]hether there was or was not probable cause is difficult to determine on this record.” Ante, at 301. And, since the Court of Appeals did not consider that question, the proper course would be to remand to that court so that it might decide in the first instance whether there was probable cause to arrest or search. There is simply no need for this Court to decide, upon a disputed record and at this stage of the litigation, whether the instant search would be permissible if probable cause existed. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425325. Public record. Not legal advice.