Winston v. Lee (1984)
- Docket
- 83-1334
- Decided
- 1984-01-01
Summary
Question: Does the Fourth Amendment prevent a state from a forcing a suspect to undergo surgery in order to retrieve evidence? Conclusion: Yes. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. delivered the unanimous opinion. The Court held that below-the-skin surgery represented such an infringement on the expectation of privacy that it must be justified by a compelling need for the evidence that might be produced. Since the state could not demonstrate a compelling need for the bullet in order to make the case against Lee, the Court held that the intrusion on Lee’s privacy vastly outweighed any state interest. Therefore, the surgery would be an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. Justice Harry A. Blackmun and Justice William H. Rehnquist concurred in the judgment. In his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote that he did not read this decision as preventing the police from detaining a suspect whose body they believed to contain evidence that would be naturally revealed.