Police want bullet from teen's forehead

[rodeodance]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/21/teen.bullet.ap/index.html

Police want bullet from teen's forehead

POSTED: 12:31 a.m. EST, December 22, 2006

Story Highlights
• Joshua Bush, 17, has a 9 mm bullet in his forehead
• Police say the bullet is evidence that implicates Bush in a robbery
• A judge has issued a search warrant to extract the bullet
• Bush's lawyer is fighting the removal, raising legal, ethical and medical issues


PORT ARTHUR, Texas (AP) -- In the middle of Joshua Bush's forehead, two inches above his eyes, lies the evidence that prosecutors say could send the teenager to prison for attempted murder: a 9 mm bullet, lodged just under the skin.

Prosecutors say it will prove that Bush, 17, tried to kill the owner of a used-car lot after a robbery in July. And they have obtained a search warrant to extract the slug.

But Bush and his lawyer are fighting the removal, in a legal and medical oddity that raises questions about patient privacy and how far the government can go to solve crimes without running afoul of the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"It's unfortunate this arguably important piece of evidence is in a place where it can't be easily retrieved," said Seth Chandler, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "You have to balance our desire to convict the guilty against the government not poking around our bodies on a supposition."

Investigators say that Bush was part of a group of gang members who broke into a used car lot and tried to steal vehicles. According to police, Bush tried to shoot businessman Alan Olive, and when Olive returned fire, a bullet struck the teenager and burrowed into the soft, fatty tissue of his forehead.........

[RC]

1. Texas, another bush...

Another member of the bush family criminal enterprise??

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Can't they just take a picture

or an xray and use that?

[Canuckistanian]

13. No, they need to see surface marks on the bullet

An Xray can't do that.

[cboy4]

3. I'm very uncomfortable with this. I mean, if this isn't an

unreasonable search and seizure, than what is?

[rodeodance]

4. If the police have evidence that it is indeed him, then perhaps not so

"UNreasonable"??????

[cboy4]

8. I'd like to hear more about this one, but I feel initially very

uncomfortable about invading the bodies of other people (in this way) for certainly anything less than a murder.

It's a tough call considering the case, but it's an honest feeling that I have.

I'm sure I'd feel differently perhaps, if I were the victim's family.

edit...typo

[michreject]

41. Not for attempted murder?..............eom

[atreides1]

11. But

If the evidence implicates him then why the need for the bullet? Perhaps their evidence isn't all that compelling?

[cboy4]

21. Yea. You don't need to recover a body to convict for murder.

I'd say they're concerned they can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt as it stands, without the bullet.

[crikkett]

5. you'd think a permanent bindi on his forehead would be lesson enough

like the mark of Cain or something

[acmavm]

6. Geez, this one is trickey. It sounds pretty much like it's in a place

that make retrieving it possible without causing death to this guy. Normally one would have any foreign object removed from one's body but in this case the removal would prove that he was a dangerous felon.

And then there's the Fifth but I can't exactly figure out one way or the other if I believe that letting the prosecution have the bullet is the same thing as self-incrimination. But I'm sure I also have a subliminal and strong prejudice against someone who feels entitled to shoot and kill another person during the course of a robbery.

Don't know, don't know.

[Tanuki]

7. I'm having trouble deciding whether this is more akin to

self-incrimination or to supplying a fingerprint or DNA sample. I will be intersted in seeing how it plays out!

[acmavm]

9. Yeah really.

[depakid]

10. So you don't have to click on CNN

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6203069.stm

Of course, without reviewing the charts and the evidence, there's no real way to know what the merits of this case really are.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

12. (CBC) Texas teenager fighting efforts by police to remove bullet from his head

<snip>

All sides agree that removing the bullet would not be life-threatening. But Bush's family and lawyer say it would be a violation of the teenager's civil rights and set a dangerous precedent.

Meanwhile, Bush is in jail on charges related to the robbery, but not the shooting.

Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, predicted Bush's rights as a patient will trump the state's desire to get the bullet, and said authorities might have a hard time finding someone willing to extract the slug.

"It truly is a moral quandary," Caplan said. "Doctors are caught between wanting to help solve crimes and their responsibility to patients' rights to refuse a procedure."

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/061221/K122113AU.html

[Lurking Dem]

14. You cannot force someone to undergo

a medical procedure that they do not consent to. Period. This is already a matter of law so I don't get why they're even trying to do this? It's no different than if the bullet was lost at the scene.

[michreject]

35. It happens all the time

Doctors are performing medical procedures on unwilling patients all the time. Most notably children who's parents insist on healing through prayer.

[LiberalFighter]

15. Do they have probable cause that he was involved?

If so they need to get a warrant.
Then the judge needs to decide whether they can retrieve the bullet.



But a Beaumont doctor determined that small pieces of bone were growing around the slug, and he did not have the proper tools in the emergency room to do it. The doctor said that removal would require surgery under general anesthesia and that no operating rooms were available.

Question: How much bone growth occurs with something like this? Knowing this should determine the time period of the injury.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

16. Future Law & Order episode right here.

[rocktivity]

17. REMOVING the bullet may not be life-threatening, but what about NOT removing it?

All sides agree that removing the bullet would not be life-threatening. But..."When the medical profession divorces itself from its own responsibility and makes itself an arm of the state, it's a dangerous path," said...Bush's lawyer...

Bush is in jail on charges related to the robbery, but not the shooting...(T)he teen's mother disputed allegations her son is a gang member. "We know he's not a criminal," she said. "He's a good kid."

It's the medical profession's responsiblity to remove the bullet if they can do so without killing Bush, and especially if it will do more serious damage in the long run. I would think that an innocent man would be more than happy to produce the evidence that the bullet isn't attached to the crime, especially if the alternative is spending the rest of his life with it in his head. THAT'S okay with his mother? And why am I supposed to be more impressed with Bush being a "freelance" juvenile delinquent as opposed to a "card-carrying" gang-banger?

:crazy:
rocknation

[cboy4]

22. Bullets/fragments are left inside shooting victims all the time. They

wouldn't do so if they felt the risk outweighed that of removing the bullet.

And I'm not so sure it's the medical profession's responsibility. I think that's why they're seemingly having trouble finding doctors who will agree to a surgery by force.

[-..__...]

24. "We know he's not a criminal," she said. "He's a good kid."

Uhhh, lady... your precious angel admitted to being involved in the robbery attempt.

:eyes:

[snooper2]

18. how do you get shot in the forehead with a 9mm

and not die...weird...when I touch my forehead there is like 1/4 inch of "fatty tissue"..??? :crazy:

[-..__...]

23. Too bad the the car dealer didn't have something in a more powerful caliber...

then those involved wouldn't be in this legal predicament.

[snooper2]

25. more powerful caliber?

I guess your being sarcastic...I just want to see Mythbusters try this one on a show....

[-..__...]

26. If I was being sarcastic...

I would have used the :sarcasm: tag.

[Paladin]

30. If You Weren't Being Sarcastic......

....you ought to be ashamed of yourself for making such a comment. But I doubt you have the capacity for it......

[-..__...]

33. Sorry...

but I have no sympathy for gang-banging shit-stains who not only choose to rip-off car dealerships, but then return to the crime scene to intimidate the witness with a firearm.

Society would have been better served if the dealership owner had pulled the thugs plug using something with a wee bit more sting to it.

:nopity:

[billbuckhead]

34. Life is cheap in America because of our promiscous gun regulations

Society would be better if we didn't have such easy access to guns. Just compare the USA murder rate with the EU's or Canada's.

[michreject]

36. I don't live in Europe or Canada

I live here and the problems are here. I will carry a gun, thank you very much.

Don't you get tired of posting the same old shit? Nobody listens or cares about your industrialized nation list.

[billbuckhead]

43. We're now behind India in murder now as well

A definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The gun lobby and it's minions reminds me the US auto industry and their not invented here blindness.

[cboy4]

38. Why don't we wait and see if this is person is responsible before you

advocate gunning down a potentially innocent human being with a more powerful round?

You have zero idea whether this person is the correct individual, now do you?

Your rush to judgment, with all due respect, sounds like something I'd find posted on the FOX News website. :eyes:

[harpboy_ak]

40. the kid shot FIRST, you gun-shy whiners!

the store owner then shot the kid. seems to me that the slight burden and slight discomfort of the required surgery does not outweigh the state's need to recover the evidence that the perp is withholding.

I agree that it would have been better for the store owner to have used a better weapon and perhaps aimed better. If the kid had died I doubt if the store owner would have been charged, since he was defending himself from an armed attack.

[-..__...]

44. Uhhh, think about it?

If he was "innocent" (meaning... he wasn't involved in the shootout), then my earlier comment about the dealership owner having a more "powerful caliber" firearm on hand wouldn't apply (meaning... why would he need to use a more powerful handgun against an innocent person)?

Considering the 'victim' :sarcasm: had already lied twice to investigators; once about even being at the previous crime scene (which he later admitted to being at), and second... stating that his injury was the result of a basketball game, :eyes:, any claim or pretense of "innocence" sounds highly unlikely.

Besides... stating guilt or innocence in the court of public opinion doesn't clear, convict or bury anyone. If it did, Bush (the other one, would have been cremated long ago. :smoke:

[Paladin]

42. That 17-Year-Old Kid......

....has a bullet in his skull, and faces some serious and deserved jail time if (and let's emphasize the "if" at this point, shall we?) it's established that he took part in the crimes described. Your public proclamation that you'd rather have him dead says a lot more about the kind of person you are, the kind of environment you inhabit, and the kind of job your parents did in raising you, than I think you wanted to reveal.....

[saigon68]

39. A .45 ACP or 44 Mag would have stopped the robber in his tracks

These merchants need bigger, more "robust" (thanks Dick Cheney) fire power to deal with the little gangster wannabees.

Wonder what the perp was carrying?

[Exultant Democracy]

45. Perhaps less guns for children (yes a 17 year old is a child) would be a better start

The only real way to fix problems like this is with education, investment and hope. Escalation is the last thing that we should bring into these economically and socially devastated regions.

[Posteritatis]

32. The skull's a tough SOB

Remember, it spent several hundred million years evolving to defend the most important organ in the body, and the forehead itself is especially effective as armor.

If it's not a direct hit, the bullet can riccochet off the skull, or get embedded partly in it, or even run around the exterior of it and stay lodged beneath the skin. Someone could get shot in the front of the head, have an exit wound in the back, and not have the ground penetrate the skull at all, though that would be exceptional.

Some guy was shot in the back of the head a block from where I was a few years ago, and literally didn't know it happened - he thought someone threw a rock at him, until he realized the round was still there a day or so later. That was a smaller caliber, but still.

I guarantee you both of these guys are going around thinking "...skulls are really cool" right now.

[THUNDER HANDS]

19. so it's unreasonable to remove a bullet from a forehead?

like, what, the bullet got there naturally?

[robcon]

20. The controlling precedent is Winston vs. Lee

The case states "the reasonableness of surgical intrusions beneath the skin depends on a case-by-case approach, in which the individual's interests in privacy and security are weighed against society's interests in conducting the procedure."

In other words, they have to have a good case that the removal of the bullet will be good evidence, and that the surgery is unlikely to cause any further damage to the patient.

http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=432368

[madmusic]

29. Winston v. Lee was about blood tests, but...

Similarly, the Supreme Court in Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 ('85), recognized that Schmerber's threshold standard was a requirement of probable cause 'where intrusions into the human body are concerned,' which implicate 'deep-rooted expectations of privacy.' Id. at 761, 760. The Winston Court then acknowledged `other factors'' (b]eyond these standards' that must be considered in determining whether a particular intrusion is reasonable: whether 'the procedure threatens the safety or health of the individual' and 'the extent of the intrusion upon the individual's dignitary interests.' Id. at 761 (emphasis added). In regard to the additional 'dignitary' factor (beyond the threshold inquiry of invasion of bodily integrity), the Winston Court noted Schmerber's recognition that blood extraction is not 'an unduly extensive imposition.' Id. at 762. The Court contrasted this lesser bodily invasion, which the Schmerber Court had upheld upon demonstration of probable cause, with the more drastic measure of dangerous surgery to recoup criminal evidence, which the Winston Court concluded would violate the individual's Fourth Amendment rights even when supported by probable cause. Thus again, the context of the quotation demonstrates that the Court places blood extraction squarely within the probable cause requirement because it is an invasion of bodily integrity, while at the same time acknowledging that it is a less extensive imposition on dignitary interests than surgical removal of a bullet.

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f081.htm

[Tight_rope]

27. "You have to balance our desire to convict the guilty against the government not poking around...

our bodies on a supposition."....Ummmmm excuse me, but don't they scan our bodies at the airports and if they see anything suspicious they have it extracted. This is bullshit. That boy is guilty as hell and he, you and me know it.

[robcon]

31. It's not really about Bush's guilt in this case.

It's about constitutional principles to be applied in ALL cases - especially in less obvious cases.

I think the constitution trumps your opinion that "the boy is guilty as hell." He can only be operated on with court supervision, and only after meeting the evidentiary and medical standards.

edit:spell

[leftofthedial]

28. is everyone named Bush a thief?

[CJCRANE]

37. He should return the bullet.

It doesn't belong to him.