Justices rule authorities can seek bullet removed during surgery years after gunfight

The New Jersey Supreme Court decided Tuesday that authorities can try to use a search warrant to obtain a bullet lodged in a man during an alleged gunfight with police, rejecting his attorney’s argument that the projectile and its fragments were part of a defense investigation shielded from discovery.

The defendant at the center of the case argued that his Fifth Amendment right to self-incrimination barred prosecutors from using a search warrant to obtain the bullet — extracted from him during elective surgery at Cooper University Hospital in Camden — but the court unanimously ruled the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable government searches and seizures, is the proper framework to examine the case.

“No evidence is being ripped from defendant’s hands as Cooper Hospital is in possession of the bullet and the search warrant, if issued, would be served on the hospital, not on defendant,” Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis wrote for a unanimous court.

Tuesday’s ruling overturns a lower court decision that the Supreme Court said improperly applied constitutional protections on self-incrimination and counsel’s assistance. It kicks the case back to the trial court so authorities can argue there is probable cause for a search warrant.

The case concerns Shlawrence Ross, who was struck four times during an alleged 2017 shootout with Camden County police. One bullet remained in Ross’s abdomen until 2022, when he underwent the surgery to remove it on the advice of his attorney, Tuesday’s ruling says.

In early 2018, Ross was indicted for a series of offenses, including multiple counts of first-degree attempted murder, second-degree and fourth-degree aggravated assault, and weapons charges.

Ross’s attorneys had negotiated with Cooper University Hospital to take possession of the bullet following its removal, but hospital officials refused to turn the bullet over to the defense after speaking with police.

Before the high court, Ross’s attorneys argued the bullet never left his possession because hospital staff acted as his agents while removing it, meaning the bullet would have been in his possession and shielded from seizure by constitutional protections against self-incrimination. 

The Supreme Court disagreed.

“Notwithstanding the fact that defense counsel suggested the elective surgery, and irrespective of any agreements defense counsel believed she had with Cooper Hospital, the subject item is physical evidence and is reachable via search warrant if probable cause is established,” the justice wrote.

Attorneys for the state argued the 2017 gunfight, rather than any defense investigation, made the bullet evidence, and the Attorney General’s Office separately argued the bullet could be legally obtained because it was not protected attorney work product.

The high court also rejected Ross’s Fifth Amendment arguments, finding protections against self-incrimination could not be applied to third parties like Cooper hospital.

The high court’s decision affirms an unpublished appellate ruling that found the Fourth Amendment’s search and seizure protections set the proper standard rather than discovery rules or guarantees to effective counsel under the Sixth Amendment.