Davis v. State

Marbury, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Washington County, sentencing him to life imprisonment, after a verdict of a jury finding him guilty of murder in the first degree, without capital punishment. He raises only one question, which he states as the admission in evidence over his objection of a sample of his blood. He claims that the circumstances under which it was taken from his body compelled him to testify against himself in violation of the Declaration of Rights.

It is necessary, in order to understand the question propounded, to relate certain facts in relation to the charge against him. On December 10, 1946, a Mrs. McAllister was found dead in a second story room of a dwelling house in Montgomery County, owned by her family, and used occasionally by her. She had been beaten to death with a hammer found in the room. Blood was found on her garments, on the floor, and on objects in the room.

The appellant was suspected because of his open and notorious friendship with the victim, and because he had been frequently seen driving her automobile. It was discovered that he had driven this car to his home in Tennessee, and he was arrested there on December 19th on the charge of stealing it. When arrested, he was in a hospital, under treatment for iodine poisoning, as a result of his having swallowed a large quantity of this drug. He was transported by two Montgomery County policemen in an automobile to Rockville, Maryland, and there placed in jail.

On his arrival he was treated by the county medical officer, and given a laxative. This was on the evening of December 22nd. On the following day another physician visited him, for the purpose, as the physician testified, of getting some of his blood at the request of the State’s Attorney. This physician said the Captain of Detectives of Montgomery ⁶⁴³ County, who accompanied him on the visit, asked appellant if he would mind if he took his blood.

Appellant held out his arm, and the physician took some of his blood, and turned the specimen over to the officer. The physician also testified that he put a stethoscope on appellant’s heart, took his pulse, but did not tell him why he wanted the blood, except that he said it was at the request of the State’s Attorney. The Captain of Detectives corroborated this testimony, and said, in addition, that the doctor asked appellant if the medicine the county physician had given him the previous night had worked. He also stated that when he asked appellant if he had any objection to their getting a sample of his blood, appellant said no, and held up his arm to the physician.

He said appellant was not informed of the purpose for which they wanted the blood specimen. Appellant testified that the second doctor asked him if he knew the iodine he had taken might affect his eyes or his kidneys. The doctor then said they would like to take a blood test and a urine specimen. Appellant said he thought they were doing it for his health.

He said that he never got a bottle for the purpose of giving the urine specimen, although he asked the jailer for one several times. The blood specimen was admitted in evidence over appellant’s objection, and testimony was offered that it belonged to Group “A”. The blood from the slip and the brassiere found on the victim, and that from the blanket with which she was covered when found, and that on the hammer, belonged to Group “0”. Blood found on the lining of the left sleeve of appellant’s coat was also found to belong to Group “0”.

It was the contention of the State that this last blood might have come from the victim. To offset this, appellant offered testimony to show that while wearing the coat he had been in a fight with two men. He claimed that the blood in this sleeve must have come from one of these two men, who, he said, were bleeding during the fight. The evidence ⁶⁴⁴ showed that one of these men had Group “A” blood, and the other Group “0”.

The admission of appellant’s blood specimen, therefore, tended to prove that the blood in appellant’s coat did not come from his own body, but that it could have come either from the victim or from one of the two men with whom the appellant had fought. We have recently had occasion to approve the admission of blood tests as a link in the chain of evidence, against an accused in a rape case. Shanks v. State, 185 Md. 437 , 45 A. 2d 85 , 163 A. L. R. 931, annotated at page 939. In that case, in which the general subject was discussed at length, blood was taken from the coat of an accused, and evidence as to it was produced through witnesses other than accused.

No objection is made here to the evidence and test of the blood taken from appellant’s coat. The appellant raises a different question, which is whether testimony about his blood, taken from his body, by a subterfuge, is not inadmissible as a violation of his constitutional immunity from giving evidence against himself. The State asserts that as no force or compulsion was used to get appellant’s blood,