Poll
Question:
Do police have the right to take a DNA sample after an arrest?
Option 1: It's Constitutional
votes: 6
Option 2: It's Unconstitutional
votes: 12
What say you, Languish? Are you for it or against it?
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/01/18631808-enormous-repercussions-as-court-weighs-dna-sampling-during-arrests?lite
Quote'Enormous' repercussions as court weighs DNA sampling during arrests
Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images file
The Supreme Court is weighing whether police have the right to take a DNA sample immediately after an arrest.
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
The Supreme Court is about to decide what one justice says may be its most important criminal procedure case in decades — whether the police have the right to take a DNA sample after they make an arrest.
The question before the justices is whether taking DNA, often with the quick swab of a cheek, is the latter-day equivalent of fingerprinting or violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.
"This is what's at stake," Justice Samuel Alito said during an oral argument Feb. 26. "Lots of murders, lots of rapes that can be — that can be solved using this new technology that involves a very minimal intrusion on personal privacy."
The case arises from the arrest of a 26-year-old Maryland man, Alonzo King, in 2009 on a charge of second-degree assault. The police took a swab of DNA from his cheek, ran it through a database and matched it to an unsolved rape from six years earlier.
King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for the 2009 assault. The Maryland Court of Appeals later reversed the rape conviction on the grounds that the DNA sample was an unreasonable search.
The question before the court has vast implications: 28 states and the federal government take DNA swabs from people under arrest before they can be judged innocent or guilty. In Maryland alone, DNA samples during arrests have led to 75 prosecutions and 42 convictions since 2009, Katherine Winfree, the state's chief deputy attorney general, told the justices.
Maryland law restricts DNA swabbing to people arrested for certain violent crimes. But Chief Justice John Roberts, worried about the reach of similar laws, wondered during the oral argument why they couldn't be applied to simple traffic stops.
"There's no reason you couldn't, right?" he asked Winfree. "I gather it's not that hard. Police officers who give Breathalyzer tests, they can also take a Q-tip or whatever and get a DNA sample, right?"
Michael Dreeben, a lawyer for the federal government, which supports the Maryland law, told the justices that people under arrest "are no longer like free citizens who are wandering around on the streets" with full Fourth Amendment rights.
They can be subjected to a strip search, for example, or given a medical screening when they are thrown in jail, he said. While he conceded that law enforcement officers must get a warrant before searching a home, he said DNA was "not of that character."
"It is far more like taking a fingerprint," he said.
Kannon Shanmugam, a lawyer for King, argued that the two were different, partly because fingerprinting is mostly used for identification, not to solve cold cases, and is much more invasive.
"An individual's DNA contains far more information and far more personal information than an individual's fingerprints," he said.
Prosecutors around the country will be watching the court's ruling closely. If the justices decide that DNA swabbing during arrest is unconstitutional, untold numbers of cold-case convictions could be appealed.
Mindful of the implications, the court could narrowly tailor its ruling, said Jeffrey Urdangen, director of the Center for Criminal Defense at the Northwestern University School of Law.
"The repercussions of this are enormous," he said.
For victims of violent crime, as for the justices themselves, the question presents a difficult balancing act — how to weigh the crime-solving power of forensic advances against the rights of the accused.
Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, acknowledged that the issue is tough, but she said the center supports DNA sampling at the time of arrest, partly because it could prevent future crime.
She likened it to vaccination: Patients have to grapple with side effects, she said, but that pales next to the potential for good.
Of the DNA sampling, she said: "It's a tool that can save many, many, many lives, and we should take hold of it. It doesn't mean that we don't remain a good country. It's not the end of democracy. It's just a new tool that we need to learn how to handle."
Justice Antonin Scalia was less welcoming. At the oral argument, he cut off Winfree, the Maryland state lawyer, immediately after she mentioned the 75 prosecutions and 42 convictions.
"Well, that's really good," he said. "I'll bet you if you conducted a lot of unreasonable searches and seizures, you'd get more convictions, too."
Alito, the justice who called the sampling issue "perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that this court has heard in decades," appeared to lean toward classifying it with fingerprinting.
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He and Scalia, two of the court's conservatives, generally come down on the same side of rulings. But they appeared to differ on DNA sampling, an indication of the trickiness of the issue.
Matching the DNA against databases now takes two to three weeks. Two years from now, it could be almost instant, the Maryland lawyer said, meaning the judges could use it to make determinations about bail.
Scalia was unmoved.
"You just can't demonstrate that now," he said. "Maybe you can in two years. The purpose now is — is the purpose you began your presentation with, to catch the bad guys, which is a good thing."
"But you know," he continued, "the Fourth Amendment sometimes stands in the way."
NO
To gather evidence at the point of arrest to investigate crimes not connected to the immediate arrest is an unreasonable search, at least IMHFO.
Besides, booking procedures are enough of a pain in the ass as it is.
I don't see the big deal.
How is this different from looking at an arrestees drivers licence or library card to ascertain identity?
Quote from: Viking on June 01, 2013, 09:24:13 PM
How is this different from looking at an arrestees drivers licence or library card to ascertain identity?
Because they aren't trying to ascertain identity, they are trying to solve past crimes.
You should read the article.
Quote from: sbr on June 01, 2013, 09:36:10 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 01, 2013, 09:24:13 PM
How is this different from looking at an arrestees drivers licence or library card to ascertain identity?
Because they aren't trying to ascertain identity, they are trying to solve past crimes.
You should read the article.
I still don't see a difference. This is no different from fingerprints or photographs or any other form of biometric means of identification. The only reason this is brought up is that the science hating luddites don't know what DNA is. Finger prints can be used to solve past crimes, mug shots can be used to solve past crimes etc.
The Police will abuse this.
I'm going with the forum cops on this one.
Quote from: 11B4V on June 01, 2013, 09:43:30 PM
The Police will abuse this.
They already are; Maryland has at least 4 separate agencies managing their own DNA databases: MSP, Baltimore City, PG County, and Baltimore County.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on June 01, 2013, 09:49:45 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on June 01, 2013, 09:43:30 PM
The Police will abuse this.
They already are; Maryland has at least 4 separate agencies managing their own DNA databases: MSP, Baltimore City, PG County, and Baltimore County.
Wonder if this gets struck down if they will have to purge all or some of that data base.
Or at least consolidate it with a single centralized DB that follows the rules.
Quote from: Viking on June 01, 2013, 09:40:42 PM
Quote from: sbr on June 01, 2013, 09:36:10 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 01, 2013, 09:24:13 PM
How is this different from looking at an arrestees drivers licence or library card to ascertain identity?
Because they aren't trying to ascertain identity, they are trying to solve past crimes.
You should read the article.
I still don't see a difference. This is no different from fingerprints or photographs or any other form of biometric means of identification. The only reason this is brought up is that the science hating luddites don't know what DNA is. Finger prints can be used to solve past crimes, mug shots can be used to solve past crimes etc.
Someone has Cold Case on DVD! :hug:
Quote from: 11B4V on June 01, 2013, 09:43:30 PM
The Police will abuse this.
The police abuse guns, tasers, flashlights and cars and yet we still let them keep that.
I'm with the criminal and Icelander here. It's biometric identification information.
I can see some police agencies being very trigger happy with arrests in certain problematic neighborhoods, just to build a database. It's a twofer: you check for past crimes, and you'll solve some of the future crimes instantly.
Quote from: Ideologue on June 01, 2013, 09:21:46 PM
I don't see the big deal.
Your DNA contains information that might, for example, keep you from ever finding work again.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 05:11:03 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 01, 2013, 09:21:46 PM
I don't see the big deal.
Your DNA contains information that might, for example, keep you from ever finding work again.
Like what?
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 05:11:03 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 01, 2013, 09:21:46 PM
I don't see the big deal.
Your DNA contains information that might, for example, keep you from ever finding work again.
The DNA information analyzed and stored for the databank does not contain that degree of information.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 05:11:03 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on June 01, 2013, 09:21:46 PM
I don't see the big deal.
Your DNA contains information that might, for example, keep you from ever finding work again.
The kind of DNA profile you need to identify somebody and the kind of DNA profile which can be used to diagnose possible genetic anomalies and susceptibilities to disease are different.
The two also require different types of material. The cheek swab you use can be used to identify while the individual dna profile you would need for personalized medicine needs a blood sample of some size.
It's not the same thing. As I said, Luddites who don't know what DNA is.
Quote from: Viking on June 02, 2013, 07:45:12 AM
The kind of DNA profile you need to identify somebody and the kind of DNA profile which can be used to diagnose possible genetic anomalies and susceptibilities to disease are different.
The two also require different types of material. The cheek swab you use can be used to identify while the individual dna profile you would need for personalized medicine needs a blood sample of some size.
It's not the same thing. As I said, Luddites who don't know what DNA is.
The question is not whether swabs are most commonly used or not now. Who is to say a new, cheap tech cannot appear in the next decades that allows full profiles to be acquired?
I'm perfectly fine with limited DNA profiles
with appropriate checks. But if this is an all or nothing proposition, then nothing it should be.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 08:54:33 AM
Quote from: Viking on June 02, 2013, 07:45:12 AM
The kind of DNA profile you need to identify somebody and the kind of DNA profile which can be used to diagnose possible genetic anomalies and susceptibilities to disease are different.
The two also require different types of material. The cheek swab you use can be used to identify while the individual dna profile you would need for personalized medicine needs a blood sample of some size.
It's not the same thing. As I said, Luddites who don't know what DNA is.
The question is not whether swabs are most commonly used or not now. Who is to say a new, cheap tech cannot appear in the next decades that allows full profiles to be acquired?
Agreed, lets stick to the issues and technology at hand.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 08:54:33 AM
I'm perfectly fine with limited DNA profiles with appropriate checks. But if this is an all or nothing proposition, then nothing it should be.
So you are perfectly happy with the DNA needed for identification of samples then?
Quote from: Viking on June 02, 2013, 09:02:07 AM
Agreed, lets stick to the issues and technology at hand.
That's terribly short-sighted.
Quote
So you are perfectly happy with the DNA needed for identification of samples then?
Again. It's perfectly fine, as long as limits and effective supervision of those are in place. Otherwise, no.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 09:05:56 AM
Quote from: Viking on June 02, 2013, 09:02:07 AM
Agreed, lets stick to the issues and technology at hand.
That's terribly short-sighted.
No It's not. When the facts change the evaluation can change.
Quote from: Iormlund on June 02, 2013, 09:05:56 AM
Quote
So you are perfectly happy with the DNA needed for identification of samples then?
Again. It's perfectly fine, as long as limits and effective supervision of those are in place. Otherwise, no.
Just like they do with fingerprints?
This kinda remind me of the GM food debate.
I'm OK with DNA swabs, but as a matching reference, not a source. If there's no DNA to match from the incident scene itself, there's no reason to take it, and it's just going fishing.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 02, 2013, 09:20:23 AM
I'm OK with DNA swabs, but as a matching reference, not a source.
What do you mean by "matching reference"
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 02, 2013, 09:20:23 AM
If there's no DNA to match from the incident scene itself, there's no reason to take it, and it's just going fishing.
Is this a standard you would also apply to fingerprints then?
I'm with Alito on this one. This seems like a fairly commonsense system that can do a lot of good (albeit a system that probably needs some safeguards).
Quote from: Viking on June 02, 2013, 07:45:12 AM
As I said, Luddites who don't know what DNA is.
And yet you want cops in charge of it? That's worse than Luddism, that's Philistinism. :lol:
Constitutional.
QuoteWashington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has ruled criminal suspects can be subjected to a police DNA test after arrest -- before trial and conviction -- a privacy-versus-public-safety dispute that could have wide-reaching implications in the rapidly evolving technology surrounding criminal procedure.
At issue in the ruling Monday was whether taking genetic samples from someone held without a warrant in criminal custody for "a serious offense" is an unconstitutional "search."
A 5-4 majority of the court concluded it is legitimate, and upheld a state law.
"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, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," the majority wrote.
Law enforcement lauds genetic testing's potential as the "gold standard" of reliable evidence gathering, especially to solve "cold cases" involving violent offenders.
But privacy rights groups counter the state's "trust us" promise not to abuse the technology does not ease their concerns that someone's biological makeup could soon be applied for a variety of non-criminal purposes.
Twenty-six states and the federal government allow genetic swabs to be taken after a felony arrest and without a warrant.
Each has different procedures, but in all cases, only a profile is created. About 13 individual markers out of some 3 billion are isolated from a suspect's DNA. That selective information does not reveal the full genetic makeup of a person and, officials stress, nothing is shared with any other public or private party, including any medical diagnostics.
The Obama administration has signaled its support.
The case involves a Maryland man convicted of a 2003 rape in Wicomico County in the state's Eastern Shore region. Alonzo King Jr. had been arrested four years ago on an unrelated assault charge, and a biological sample was automatically obtained at that time. That sample was linked to the earlier sexual assault.
King moved to suppress that evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, but was ultimately convicted of the 2003 first-degree rape offense and was given a life sentence. The Fourth Amendment grants the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."
Both King and his legal team turned down CNN's request for an interview.
A divided Maryland Court of Appeals later agreed with King, saying suspects under arrest enjoy a higher level of privacy than a convicted felon, outweighing the state's law enforcement interests. That court also said obtaining King's DNA immediately after arrest was not necessary in identifying him, and that the process was more personally invasive than standard fingerprinting.
But the high court decided in favor of the state. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito.
The issue of citizen privacy has been particularly acute since the 9/11 attacks. Federal and state governments have stepped up surveillance of suspected terrorists and their allies and of high-risk targets, like government buildings and shopping malls.
The current conservative-majority court has generally been supportive of law enforcement in recent search and privacy disputes, but not always. The court last year ruled police could not place a GPS tracking device on a drug suspect's car for several weeks without first obtaining a search warrant.
In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority's reasoning established a "terrifying principle."
"The court's opinion barely mentions the crucial fact about this case: the search here was entirely suspicionless. The police had no reason to believe King's DNA would link him to any crime."
Scalia added the state law "manages to burden uniquely the sole group for whom the Fourth Amendment's protections ought to be most jealously guarded: people who are innocent of the state's accusations," describing of the legal concept of innocent until proven guilty.
He was supported by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Scalia's prior support of Fourth Amendment protections is well-documented, so his siding with three more liberal members of the court was not surprising.
A 1994 federal law created a national database in which local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies can compare and share information on DNA matches from convicted felons, but courts have been at odds on just when such samples can be collected and the information distributed.
In a brief filed by 49 states supporting Maryland, officials also said the information is secure, and retested when an initial "hit" is identified. After a warrant is issued for probable cause, another fresh DNA sample is taken and it is that test that is used to ultimately prosecute in court. Each initial test costs about $30.
The Fourth Amendment requires the government to balance legitimate law enforcement interests with the privacy rights of individuals. A key area of concern in the high court was whether developing "Rapid DNA" technology would allow initial identification testing to be completed within about two hours. Currently it can take two weeks or more, depending on backlogs.
Civil liberties groups worry inadequate testing by overwhelmed lab technicians can lead to errors, such as the one that sent Dwayne Jackson to prison for armed robbery. It was three years before a lab mistake was noticed, and the Nevada man was freed as an innocent man.
DNA -- Deoxyribonucleic acid -- is a coded molecule providing a genetic map for the development of all known living organisms. By 2000, all 50 states and the federal government required DNA collection from convicted offenders, and that was soon expanded by many jurisdiction to criminal arrests.
The number of offender profiles in federal Combined DNA Index System is now about 10 million, with more than a million arrestee profiles.
Congress in December passed the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act, a grant program to help states pay for the expanded system. The 22-year-old woman was murdered in 2003, but her killer was not identified until three years later, after his conviction for another crime, when his DNA matched cold-case evidence found under the victim's fingernails.
Her mother, Jayann Sepich, personally lobbied lawmakers for months to ensure passage.
President Obama signed the bill earlier this year. "It's the right thing to do," he said in 2010, of expanding DNA swabs for arrestees. "This is where the national registry becomes so important."
The case is Maryland v. King (12-207).
I've no problem with it.
When Scalia sides in a dissent with the "liberal" judges...I tend to think that side is worthy of favor.
If Scalia joined the liberal minority, which liberal joined the conservative majority?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 03, 2013, 08:36:11 PM
If Scalia joined the liberal minority, which liberal joined the conservative majority?
Breyer.
So the two power hitters jumped teams. Very interesting.
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Which makes very good sense, especially given that with DNA fishing like this you have to be very wary of prosecutor's fallacy. One in a million match means ten people in NYC would test positive for that open rape case.
Quote from: DGuller on June 03, 2013, 11:48:33 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Which makes very good sense, especially given that with DNA fishing like this you have to be very wary of prosecutor's fallacy. One in a million match means ten people in NYC would test positive for that open rape case.
We have good experts. -_-
They don't like using the numbers though - they prefer "is a match", "is not a match" and "can not be excluded". The "Can not be excluded" category covers the one in a million type stuff.
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Oh Law & Order! :wub:
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:50:37 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 03, 2013, 11:48:33 PM
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Which makes very good sense, especially given that with DNA fishing like this you have to be very wary of prosecutor's fallacy. One in a million match means ten people in NYC would test positive for that open rape case.
We have good experts. -_-
They don't like using the numbers though - they prefer "is a match", "is not a match" and "can not be excluded". The "Can not be excluded" category covers the one in a million type stuff.
Another very good practice, IMO. Giving numbers to people who can misinterpret them is dangerous, especially when the stakes are so high, and honest misinterpretation is so easy to make without solid statistical grounding.
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Even if it's a blood relative? I have family members who... sometimes do not so nice things.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 04, 2013, 12:18:28 AM
Quote from: Barrister on June 03, 2013, 11:39:38 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I found it interesting.
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
No.
They break it down in terms of numbers - the odds of the sample and the known having the same profile is one in 1,000, or 1 in 1,000,000, or one in 1,000,000,000 (for example). The DNA experts I know will refuse to call a one in a million chance an actual match.
Even if it's a blood relative? I have family members who... sometimes do not so nice things.
Unless it's an identical twin (in which case - I don't know what they do) they can absolutely distinguish between blood relatives.
Well that's good news.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2013, 11:30:49 PM
I am curious about something: Can DNA tests give off false positives?
The police and lab personnel can still manage to fuck it up with incompetence in a variety of ways just like any other form of evidence, so you'll always have those percentages out there.
If it's limited to felony arrests, I suppose that limit's better than nothing.