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V.

Having received tips that the accused was selling narcotics, two police officers forced open the door of his room. Finding him sitting partly dressed on the side of the bed, the officers spied two capsules on the night stand beside the bed. When asked, "Are these yours?", the accused seized the capsules and put them in his mouth. A struggle ensued, in the course of which the officers pounced on the accused but failed to extract the capsules. The officers handcuffed the accused, took him to a hospital where at their direction, a doctor forced an emetic solution through a tube into accused's stomach against his will. This process induced vomiting. In the vomited matter were found two capsules which proved to contain heroin. In the criminal case, the chief evidence against the accused was the two capsules.

a) As counsel for the accused, what constitutional rights will you invoke in his defense? (4%)

b) How should the court decide the case? (3%)

a) The constitutional right against warrantless arrests and seizures. It is clear that the accused was arrested and the capsules seized without a valid warrant of arrest issued personally by a judge. Even the circumstances permissible by jurisprudence that would have otherwise made the warrantless arrests and seizures of the accused valid, namely: (1) arrests in flagrante delicto, (2) arrests effected in hot pursuit, (3) arrests of escaped prisoners, and, (4) entrapment operation, are not shown in the case at bar.

b) As the arrest of the accused was illegal, it follows that the search conducted by the police was also unlawful and the capsules forcibly expelled from his stomach was therefore inadmissible as evidence against him. Hence, the case should be dismissed.