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Page 40
The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch
June 7, 2013
. . Local Case Divides High Court
FROM PAGE 14 wrote a simple DNA cheek swab of a suspected violent criminal was no more intrusive than the time-honored fingerprinting procedure and likely far more effective. “DNA identification is an advanced technique superior to fingerprinting in many ways, so much so that to insist on fingerprints as the norm would make little sense to either the forensic expert or the lay person,” he wrote in the majority opinion. “The additional intrusion upon the arrestee’s privacy beyond that associated with fingerprinting is not significant and DNA is a markedly more accurate form of identifying arrestees.” For those reasons, the Maryland Court’s decision in the King case should be reversed and DNA samples should be allowed for arrestees charged with certain violent crimes, the opinion read. “Upon these considerations, the Court concludes that DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of the routine booking procedure,” the majority opinion reads. “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, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” However, the dissenting opinion penned by Justice Antonin Scalia suggests DNA collection from a suspected violent criminal and used to connect the suspect to an unsolved crime is paramount to a Fourth Amendment rights violation. “The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence,” Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion reads. “That prohibition is categorical and without exception. It lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment. Whenever this court has allowed a suspicionless search, it has insisted upon a justifying motive apart from the investigation of crime.” Scalia’s dissenting opinion continued, “Today’s judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes,” the dissenting opinion reads. “Then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane, applies for a driver’s license or attends public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise, but I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”
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