The court held that in view of the station-house detention upon probable cause, the very limited intrusion of scraping the defendant's fingernails for blood and other material, undertaken to preserve highly evanescent evidence, did not violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Shortly after arrival at the station house where he was represented by counsel, the investigating police noticed a dark spot on the respondent's finger.

Under protest and without a warrant, the police proceeded to take the samples, which turned out to contain traces of skin and blood cells, and fabric from the victim's nightgown.

Having exhausted his rights on direct appeal, Murphy sought a writ of habeas corpus from the Federal District Court in Oregon.

[citation needed] When police have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment permit the limited search of a suspect during a brief detention in a stationhouse when there exists a risk that the suspect may destroy readily destructible evidence and the scope of the search is limited to vindicating this interest.

Noting first that there existed probable cause to believe that Murphy had committed the murder, Justice Stewart first dismissed arguments based on the illegality of the brief seizure which occurred at the stationhouse.

Given the circumstances of the case, Murphy was less likely to be hostile to the police and less likely to take conspicuous, immediate steps to destroy incriminating evidence on his person.

Nonetheless, the court noted that the search which took place was appropriately limited in light of the absence of a formal arrest: "At the time Murphy was being detained at the station house, he was obviously aware of the detectives' suspicions.

Though he did not have the full warning of official suspicion that a formal arrest provides, Murphy was sufficiently apprised of his suspected role in the crime to motivate him to attempt to destroy what evidence he could without attracting further attention.

Testimony at trial indicated that after he refused to consent to the taking of fingernail samples, he put his hands behind his back and appeared to rub them together.

The rationale of Chimel, in these circumstances, justified the police in subjecting him to the very limited search necessary to preserve the highly evanescent evidence they found under his fingernails.

Justice Marshall's concurring opinion emphasized that the detention and subsequent limited search of Murphy were justified by the extremely strange circumstances presented.

He wrote separately to address a tangential issue based on his opinion in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, i.e. that a claim such as Murphy's is properly available in federal habeas corpus only to the extent of ascertaining whether he was afforded a fair opportunity to raise and have adjudicated the question in state courts.