Confidentiality Clash: Can Medical Professionals Disclose Diagnostic Test Results to Law Enforcement

Held: A state hospital’s performance of a diagnostic test to obtain evidence of a patient’s criminal conduct for law enforcement purposes is an unreasonable search if the patient has not consented to the procedure. The interest in using the threat of criminal sanctions to deter pregnant women from using cocaine cannot justify a departure from the general rule that an official nonconsensual search is unconstitutional if not authorized by a valid warrant. Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 67–68, 121 S. Ct. 1281, 1283, 149 L. Ed. 2d 205 (2001)

While state hospital employees, like other citizens, may have a duty to provide the police with evidence *85 of criminal conduct that they inadvertently acquire in the course of routine treatment, when they undertake to obtain such evidence from their patients for the specific purpose of incriminating those patients, they have a special obligation to make sure that the patients are fully informed about their constitutional rights, as standards of knowing waiver require.24 Cf. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67, 84–85, 121 S. Ct. 1281, 1292, 149 L. Ed. 2d 205 (2001)

Read the full case here: Ferguson v. City of Charleston 532 U.S. 67 (2001), https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/99-936