in the December 2012 issue of "Watch History" .
The defendant, masked, robbed a convenience store and was shot and wounded by the store owner. During the medical treatment, the police found the defendant, but the only thing that could prove that the defendant robbery was the bullet shot into his body. In order to protect himself, the defendant refused to take out the bullet. Clever female lawyer Laurie convinced the judge to dismiss the police's application on the grounds that it violated the Fourth Amendment's "No Unreasonable Searches".
Of course, because the bullet was not taken out in time, the defendant almost bled to death. In the end, it was only through the introduction of the hero Alan Xiao that he went to the underground clinic for surgery to save his life. Although this story has many elements of interpretation, it is by no means a case that the screenwriter fabricated out of thin air. Its realistic material is the "Winston v. Lee case" pronounced by the Supreme Court in 1985.
In the early morning of July 18, 1982, the store opened by Virginia resident Ralph Winston was about to close when someone suddenly broke in with a gun, intending to rob. Winston took the lead and fired a shot, hitting the robber in the left half of the body. The opponent fired back, hitting Winston in the foot and running away. The police who heard the news rushed Winston to the hospital for treatment. During the treatment, Winston found that a shot was taken to the emergency room, recognized the man as the robber, and quickly called the police.
The man who was shot, Rudolph Lee, claimed to be the victim of another robbery. However, the part where Li was shot was completely consistent with Winston's description. Moreover, under the police interrogation, Li's confession was full of loopholes and could not be justified. Therefore, the police decided to charge Li with attempted robbery and intentional injury. For further evidence, Florida prosecutors applied to the district court to force Lee to undergo anesthesia surgery to remove a bullet stuck in his left chest cavity.
Li knew very well in his heart that once the bullet was taken out, as long as it matched the trajectory of the gun held by Winston, his crime would be confirmed. Like the suspect in "The Attorney," he objected to the surgery, citing potential danger to his life. The Florida District Court held two hearings for this. Expert witnesses hired by the prosecution testified that the bullet was stuck 1.5 centimeters below the surface of Li's skin, and the operation only required local anesthesia and would not be life-threatening.
A district court judge agreed to a local anesthesia procedure, and Lee appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which the latter dismissed. In desperation, Lee appealed to the federal district court for help, arguing that the state court's decision violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches. However, the federal court also denied his request.
The operation was scheduled for October 18, 1982, but, perhaps because it took too long, during preoperative examinations, Lee's chest X-ray showed that the bullet was actually stuck about 2 to 3.5 cm deep in his chest. within the muscle tissue. Doctors believed the bullet would not be removed unless general anesthesia was administered. Li immediately applied to the district court for retrial on the grounds that new evidence was discovered. After being rejected, he turned to the federal court for help. After the hearing was reconvened, the federal district court finally reached out, issuing an injunction against surgery that could endanger the suspect's life. The decision was also upheld by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuit has twists and turns, all the way to the Federal Supreme Court.
The question before the justices is how to balance the interests of safeguarding the privacy and security of citizens with the vital interests of "fair law enforcement". It should be noted that the Supreme Court is not the first to deal with such "search" cases involving physical intrusion. In Schmerber v. California in 1966, the defendant was admitted to the hospital for drunk driving, and the police refused to take a blood test for alcohol concentration. However, the police still asked the doctor to forcibly take a blood sample from the defendant. Later, the defendant filed a lawsuit, arguing that the police violated the Fourth Amendment and constituted an unreasonable search. The Supreme Court ruled after the hearing that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizens "the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy," but, for most people, "blood testing poses little risk, no trauma or pain," and "in the Regular checkups are very common.” Considering that the government's "fair law enforcement" is related to the public interest, the police's blood-drawing behavior is not "unreasonable".
However, the "Winston case" is different from the "Schmerber case" after all. If doctors want to locate the bullet, they have to rummage in the suspect's muscle tissue, which will inevitably cause damage to nerves, blood vessels and other tissues in the chest cavity, and even increase the risk of concurrent infection. For Li, such an operation would seriously infringe on his personal privacy and personal dignity, and even endanger his life. At this time, the public interest involved in "fair law enforcement" may have to take a back seat.
In addition to the value tradeoff, the justices have to consider the need to do so. Florida prosecutors argued that the reason for insisting on removing the bullet was to conduct a ballistic comparison to prove that the bullet was fired from Winston's gun, thereby proving that Lee was the criminal at gunpoint. However, the justices believed that the prosecution did not only have to take out the bullet as a way to prove the suspect's guilt, and the existing evidence was already very unfavorable to Li.
Winston, for example, identified Lee on the spot at the hospital. The location where Lee was shot is consistent with Winston's description. Li could not say exactly where he was robbed, but he was found by police just a few blocks away from where the robbery took place. In short, it seems unnecessary to forcibly remove the bullet from Li's body, and the prosecution's request hardly constitutes a "reasonable" search.
Based on the above reasons, the justices pointed out that when judging whether the government can obtain evidence in the body of the defendant through surgery, three factors should be considered: first, how much the surgery will affect the life or health of the defendant; second, the impact of the surgery on the individual How deep is the invasion of privacy and personal dignity? Third, if evidence is not obtained through surgery, what is the impact on the ultimate denial of guilt. In this case, surgical anesthesia is not only dangerous, but also makes the suspect fall into a state of unconsciousness and violates his personal dignity. What's more, the prosecution has other evidence to prove the defendant's guilt, and it is not necessary to take out the bullet. Therefore, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the prosecution's request to forcibly remove the bullet was an "unreasonable search" prohibited by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
What happened to the suspect in the "Winston case", and whether the bullet remained in the body, is no longer available from official records. However, the "search" principle of intrusion established in this case is still in use today. It should be pointed out that in the judgments of the two cases, the justices did not say that the use of anesthesia must be "unreasonable", and the blood test must be "reasonable". In the final analysis, dealing with any case is a measure of interests and The process of value judgment is also the judicial embodiment of American pragmatism.
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