Shortly after Watkinson was taken to a hospital, police officers found Rudolph Lee, who was suffering from a gunshot wound to his left chest area, eight blocks away from the shooting.

On the basis of expert testimony that the surgery would require an incision of only about one-half inch, could be performed under local anesthesia, and would result in "no danger on the basis that there's no general anesthesia employed," the court granted that the surgery could proceed, and the Virginia Supreme Court denied Lee's petition for a writ of prohibition and/or a writ of habeas corpus.

The Supreme Court, was unanimous in determining that, in the absence of any potentially substantial evidentiary gains from performing such an operation, the surgery did indeed constitute an "unreasonable search" under the Fourth Amendment.

According to the opinion authored by William J. Brennan Jr., since the Commonwealth of Virginia could not produce a compelling argument that recovering the bullet from Lee would provide significant evidence in the case, the surgery was unconstitutional.

However, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger wrote in his concurring opinion that this motion did not necessarily preclude officers from detaining an individual whose body/presence could naturally provide evidence in a case.