[Vision2020] Be Careful Where You Put Your Hands And Other Appendages

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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June 3, 2013
Justices Allow Police to Take D.N.A. Samples After Arrests By ADAM
LIPTAK<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/adam_liptak/index.html>

WASHINGTON — Police may take D.N.A. samples from people arrested for
serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4
decision<http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-207_d18e.pdf>.


“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a
serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in
custody,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, “taking and
analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s D.N.A. is, like fingerprinting and
photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable
under the Fourth Amendment.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G.
Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion.

Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move
signaling deep disagreement.

“Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your D.N.A. can be
taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested,
rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” he said.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the
dissent. The case arose from the collection of D.N.A. in 2009 from Alonzo
Jay King Jr. after his arrest on assault charges in Wicomico County, Md.
His D.N.A. profile, obtained by swabbing his cheek, matched evidence in a
2003 rape case, and he was convicted of that crime. The Maryland Court of
Appeals ruled <http://mdcourts.gov/opinions/coa/2012/68a11.pdf> that a
state law authorizing D.N.A. collection from people arrested but not yet
convicted violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable
searches.

Collecting D.N.A. from people convicted of crimes was not at issue in the
case, Maryland v. King, No. 12-207. The question was, rather, whether the
Fourth Amendment allowed collecting it from people who have merely been
arrested and so are presumed innocent.

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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