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King v. State1/27/2003
Following a one-car accident, a police officer charged Michael David King with driving under the influence, and the State executed a search warrant for King's medical records at the hospital where he was treated for injuries. We granted King's interlocutory application to consider whether he was entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard on the State's request for a search warrant to obtain his medical records. Because a search warrant requires a neutral judicial officer to find probable cause that a crime has been committed, we hold that a defendant's constitutional right to privacy is not violated when the State obtains private medical records through a search warrant without notice to the defendant or a hearing on the request. Therefore, we affirm the trial court's denial of King's motion to suppress.
Michael David King was driving on a Gwinnett County road on February 25, 2000, when his car apparently spun out of control, crossed the road, hit an embankment, flew into the air, and landed upside down. The investigating officer, Todd W. Ramsey, smelled alcohol on King's breath and from inside the car. The fire department extricated King from his car and took him to the Gwinnett Medical Center where hospital workers drew his blood for diagnosis and treatment. At the hospital, Ramsey noted that King's speech was slow and slurred. The police officer read the implied consent notice to King, and King agreed to submit to the state-administered chemical blood test. The test showed a alcohol result of 0.19 grams per 100 milliliters.
The Gwinnett County Solicitor's Office filed accusations charging King with driving under the influence and failure to maintain a single lane. King filed a motion in limine to exclude the results of the state-administered blood test, which the trial court granted after the State failed to lay the proper foundation to admit the results. Meanwhile, the State had obtained a search warrant from a magistrate for all medical records related to King's treatment at the Gwinnett Medical Center on February 25, 2000. King filed a motion to suppress these private medical records on the grounds that their disclosure violated his right to privacy under the due process clause of the Georgia Constitution as held in King v. State. Denying the motion, the trial court ruled that the State did not have to provide notice to the defendant or hold a hearing because the earlier King case did not apply to search warrants.
1. In King, we addressed whether an individual's right to privacy was violated when the State obtained an accused's personal medical records through a subpoena under OCGA § 24-9-40. In that case, the jury convicted Rebecca King of driving under the influence based on the results of a blood-alcohol test that the hospital had given her for purposes of diagnosis and treatment of her injuries. We held that individuals have a state constitutional right to privacy in their personal medical records; this constitutional right includes procedural safeguards that limit the State's authority to obtain evidence against a criminal defendant by an ex parte subpoena; and OCGA § 24-9-40 (a) was unconstitutional as applied to Ms. King because she was not given notice and an opportunity to object to the prosecution's subpoena of her medical records.
In holding that the statute failed to afford Ms. King adequate due process, this Court made clear that our decision was limited to the State's use of a subpoena to obtain medical records. Specifically, we distinguished between an investigative subpoena and a search warrant as an investigative tool for gathering evidence of a crime: "Unlike the Fourth Amendment which requires that the State have probable cause prior
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