253 Ga. 524 - State v. Thornton

How this case has been cited

Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently November 2022 · most notably Olevik v. State (2017), Denton v. Con-Way Southern Express, Inc. (1991)

33 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

*526Hill, Chief Justice,

¶1concurring specially.

¶2While I join the Court’s opinion in this instance, I do not approve the police tactics utilized here.

¶3The defendant was indicted for murder and freed on bond. He was taken into custody at his Cobb County home and transported to the dentist’s office in Fulton County on the basis of search warrants issued in each county.

¶4During the motion to suppress hearing, the trial court expressed the view that the procedure utilized should not be condoned, and that the officers should have applied to the trial court for authority to obtain the dental impressions. I agree. Upon motion and after hearing, the trial court could have rendered an appropriate order, which would have avoided the unusual use of a search warrant, issued ex parte, to enter the defendant’s mouth and take dental impressions.

¶5In the future, this writer will not approve the use of a search warrant to enter the body of the defendant other than to draw blood, except upon order or search warrant issued by a superior court, the procedure used in Creamer v. State, 229 Ga. 511, 512-514 (192 SE2d 350) (1972).