US Supreme Court Allows Police To Take DNA Samples From Any Arrestee

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not bar the police from taking a DNA sample from anyone who has been arrested for a crime serious enough to warrant detention and booking. The case is Maryland v. King. It has been accepted for some time that the government can take DNA from someone who has been convicted of a crime. Now the Supreme Court has extended that power to include suspects who are presumed to be innocent but who have been arrested. The decision was close, 5-4. The majority insisted that DNA is just another means of identifying a person, like a booking photo or fingerprints. It also emphasized that a broad DNA collection effort will help exonerate those who are wrongly convicted or wrongly accused of crimes. The dissenters, led byJustice Scalia, argued that collection of DNA from a person who has not been convicted amounts to a suspicionless search that violates the right to be secured "in one's person." The dissent said that when police take routine "booking" DNA sample they are essentially investigating for all crimes involving DNA evidence even though they don't have probable cause to believe the arrested person committed any crime other than the one for which he was arrested. Defense attorneys should still remember that the DNA sample may be excluded from evidence if the arrest was made without probable cause, if the evidence was obtained through some other illegal police conduct, or if the sampling in a particular case was unreliable.