In Schmerber v. California, Schmerber was arrested for DUI at a hospital after a car accident. Against his refusal, the police officer directed a nurse to draw a blood sample that incriminated Schmerber. Regarding the appeal to Schmerber’s 5th Amendment rights, the Supreme Court ruled that “the privilege protects an accused only from being compelled to testify against himself […] with evidence of a testimonial or communicative nature, and that the withdrawal of blood and use of analysis in question, in this case, did not involve compulsion to these ends.” The majority cited the precedent established in Holt v. the United States, 218 U.S. 245: “The prohibition of compelling a man in a criminal court to be a witness against himself is a prohibition of the use of physical or moral compulsion to extort communications from him, not an exclusion of his body as evidence when it may be material […].” The privilege outlined in the 5th Amendment “is a bar against compelling ‘communications’ or ‘testimony,’ but that compulsion which makes a suspect or accused the source of ‘real or physical evidence does not violate it.”
The rulings in Schmerber and Hoyt may seem excessive in regards to a charge such as DUI, but they opened the door for compelling DNA evidence in murder and rape cases. While the Washington law stands up under established precedent, the amount of discretion it gives police still deserves attention, especially considering that it is not the job of police officers to consider whether the enforcement of a law is constitutional, Cristy v. State – A11A2152. Barring gross abuse, the Washington law will stand rightly unchallenged.