maryland vs king
 

http://news.yahoo.com/court-police-d...ccmt-container


scotus ruled 5-4 that states and the fed can collect dna at arrest, not conviction, and overturns a lower court ruling in maryland.


i've read this article, and went to scotus blog, but i need to read more. but at present, i have to say i'm not happy with the ruling at all.
and as a yahoo commenter said, if you're arrested, but not convicted-what happens to your dna? is it retained, and for how long? what about search and seizure and probable cause for searches?

I don't like it, either.

What's really weird is how the voting line broke. The 4 dissenting votes were Ginsberg, Sotomayor, Kagan... and Scalia. I wonder if it made Sonia's and Fat Tony's heads explode to find themselves on the same side of an issue.

yeah, i guess court can make strange bedfellows....

people bring up fingerprinting as a comparison, but is it a valid comparison? is an arrest really enough to warrant dna collection?

I'm tired so forgive me if I am missing something obvious, but if you aren't opposed to fingerprint collection then why DNA assuming the same rights are observed

I don't see a difference either...when arrested your prints are taken and retained if you are not charged or found quilty..why not the same with DNA?

I've asked myself the same thing, and have been trying to find out how fingerprints are handled once taken. Like I said to others, I am not sure yet if it is a good or bad thing, and I am trying to find as much info as possible.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...gerprints.html


found that, in a search i just did (after that great hockey game, of course) from '05.

as for fingerprints and me being ok with them--i'm not sure when they started using and filing them, but probably before my time. guess it's something i never thought about, til now.

dna is supposed to be removed if there's no charges, or they're exonerated-as the article above says fingerprints are supposed to be...but like the above says, that doesn't always happen.
i feel like this is just a more invasive way of search/seizure. i guess i also didn't realize til reading about the ruling that states collected dna at arrest, not conviction (arkansas collects at conviction).

1924 - The U.S. Congress acts to establish the Identification Division of the F.B.I. The National Bureau and Leavenworth are consolidated to form the basis of the F.B.I. fingerprint repository. By 1946, the F.B.I. had processed 100 million fingerprint cards; that number doubles by 1971.



yeah, like i thought, a little before my time! :D

http://news.yahoo.com/police-now-col...192600381.html

Rather than serving as a tool to verify someone's identity, they argue that it's really a backdoor to circumvent the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable searches." Police had no reason to suspect King had been involved in that rape, yet they used his arrest and DNA to charge him for an unrelated crime.


The case did not break on the usual ideological lines. In a withering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by three liberals on the bench, said it "taxes the credulity of the credulous" to suggest DNA testing is really about determining someone's identity:


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. 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. [SCOTUSBlog]

The court did not rule on specific limits for conducting pre-conviction sampling, which is another major point of contention. The court said it can only be done in the case of "serious" crimes. Yet that term is subjective, a point Scalia lambasted while arguing that the majority had "disguise[d] the vast (and scary) scope of its holding by promising a limitation it cannot deliver."

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

also, isn't fingerprinting done as an identification tool? dna most definitely is not.

Why wouldn't having someone's DNA be a HIPPA violation? You can't use fingerprints to look for specific gene anamolies you know. Potentialy you could clone someone from their DNA too.

Look at the bright side. How many jobs will this ruling create? :rolleyes:


My view on the ruling, 'if you can't do the time don't do the crime' and with a rapist as the poster boy. Enjoy your time away Alonzo. I'm sure you'll have plenty of guys waiting on you.

And from now on instead of this ruling being about Alonzo let's make it about the poor 53-year old woman he raped and robbed who now can enjoy some sense of justice instead of worrying about him coming back because he got off on a technicality.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus brief in the case, added that expanded testing could lead to even more problematic privacy issues, like an arrestee's DNA being used as a tool to probe family members. ACLU Legal Director Steven Shapiro blasted the ruling for creating a "gaping new exception" to reasonable searches, saying it ran counter to the long-held belief that the Constitution provided for searches only in cases of "individualized suspicion."


yeah, you're right dell. no big deal....just the fourth amendment getting chipped away at.
i'm sure it will only ever affect bad guys. just like drones will only kill bad guys, and only the guilty go to jail.

Get pulled over in Wisconsin and refuse a breathalyzer you get taken to the nearest hospital for a forcible blood draw though DNA is not tested. A reason to get pulled over in some towns is driving after midnight. Guess I may be a bit numb to the POTUS ruling but what's good enough for a suspected drunk driver is good enough for a suspected rapist.

So what should be done in your opinion? Let the rapist go, damn the 53 year-old victim so no one will wrongly go to jail in the future?

BTW Chicago and other IL towns have had a ban on handguns, even in one's own home yet not a peep about how the 2nd Amendment wasn't just chipped away but abolished.

scotus just ruled against warrantless blood draws.

i don't think dna should be collected until after conviction. and as for chicago and others with gun bans, there hasn't been a peep?
scotus threw out washinton dc's handgun ban as unconstitutional, and the nra immediately filed suit against chicagos law.
the lower court ruling overturning his rape conviction should not have been overturned imo. do i find that palatable? no. would it have been correct constitutionally? yes.

'McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010), is a landmark[1] decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. The Court held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.

Initially the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had upheld a Chicago ordinance banning the possession of handguns as well as other gun regulations affecting rifles and shotguns, citing United States v. Cruikshank, Presser v. Illinois, and Miller v. Texas.[2] The petition for certiorari was filed by Alan Gura, the attorney who had successfully argued Heller, and Chicago-area attorney David G. Sigale.[3] The Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association sponsored the litigation on behalf of several Chicago residents, including retiree Otis McDonald.

The oral arguments took place on March 2, 2010.[4][5] On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, reversed the Seventh Circuit's decision, holding that the Second Amendment was incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment thus protecting those rights from infringement by local governments.[6] It then remanded the case back to Seventh Circuit to resolve conflicts between certain Chicago gun restrictions and the Second Amendment.'

Justice Scalia actually addresses your very question in his dissent:

"Solving crimes is a noble objective,” he concluded, “but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law enforcement searches. The Fourth Amendment must prevail.”

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/06...r-cheek-swabs/

FYI From 1988-2010 the gun ban existed.

In true Chicago fashion handguns weren't banned but those not registered before 1982 were. At the same time Chicago stopped registering handguns making it in effect a handgun ban.

Said the noble man with round-the-clock, armed protection.

and he's right!!

some support some portions of the constitution, and rail against others. if it's sacred for those who support the 2nd, how can it not be regarding the fourth?


'I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.'

James Madison

:rolleyes:

The other problem with the decision is that the 5 concurring justices say that it's okay because the intent with DNA was to make a positive identification, while Scalia and the three women on the court say that the positive ID was already established, so there was no reason for DNA testing. Clearly, the cops were trying to link him to other crimes which he not accused of, which was not what the case was about and currently falls under unreasonable search and seizure. It's tough from a gut standpoint, since the guy likely did commit this earlier rape, but it's bad law if you believe in individual freedom and the 4th Amendment.

I can't find Scalia's full dissent, but according to comments on a site talking about it, he basically said, well then, let's be honest about what this is for and take DNA swabs from every American citizen and keep them on file. Because that's what this is about; having a database to link people to crimes.

Uh yeah... no.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...2-207_d18e.pdf

dissent begins on page 33.

Madison’s draft of what became the Fourth Amendment answered these charges by providing that the “rights of the people to be secured in their persons . . . from all unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated by warrants issued without probable cause . . . or not particularly describing the places to be searched.” 1 Annals of Cong. 434–435 (1789). As ratified, the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Clause forbids a warrant to “issue” except “upon probable cause,” and requires that it be “particula[r]” (which is to say, individualized) to “the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” And we have held that, even when a warrant is not constitutionally necessary, the Fourth Amendment’s general prohibition of “unreasonable” searches imports the same requirementof individualized suspicion. See Chandler v. Miller, 520
U. S. 305, 308 (1997).

So while the Court is correct to note (ante, at 8–9) thatthere are instances in which we have permitted searches without individualized suspicion, “[i]n none of these cases. . . did we indicate approval of a [search] whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminalwrongdoing.” Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 38 (2000). That limitation is crucial.

This was not a 'suspicion less law enforcement search'. The guy was arrested for a felony, not pulled over randomly, or pulled out of his house.

Should a finger print match for bank robbery on a DUI arrestee be thrown out should he plead guilty to a lessor charge of driving too fast for conditions?

fingerprints are for i.d., not to search for other crimes to charge an arrestee with.
king, otoh, had his dna entered not into the id'd dna, but the unsolved crime dna pool. thus, how could it be used to identify him, by matching him to unknown providers????
the majority ruled that dna was used for 'identity' purposes, scalia's dissent rips that argument to shreds. what did you think of scalia's dissent, dell?

But the DNA taken was used to link him to a crime for which he was not a suspect. And it was the only thing linking him to the crime. As Scalia points out, then why not just take mandatory DNA swipes from people applying for driver's licenses, or entering public school, or flying on a plane? Clearly the information is being gathered to solve cold cases, not identify someone accused of a specific crime. As he also said, DNA takes so long to process that it's useless as an ID technique for someone in custody.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/06/op...s-made-easier/

I hate to break this to you, but your hypothetical happens all the time in the real world. It's called a plea bargain, I believe.

exactly. and they have always ruled against this type of search in the past. but now it's ok?

Finger print matches are and have been used for matching a crime to an unknown suspect since the FBI organized the data base. To me this is just an advance in technology and should ultimately get a bunch of scum off the streets and bring justice to many families.

The FBI's IAFIS not only identifies the prints submitted but can be used as a data base to match unknown prints taken from a crime to prints on file and come up with an identification. My prints are in IAFIS, not because of any crime but because of my job. So are everyone's from stockbrokers to video poker licensees.

Unlike Scalia I think the DNA was most certainly used for identity purposes, just as finger prints are.

then explain why, like he asked, they ran the dna thru the unsolved crime dna database, not the known criminal dna database? he was checked specifically to look for crimes he wasn't arrested for, charged with, etc. it is a clear violation of the 4th amendment. it's a stretch, just like obamacare 'fines' are a tax.

and my fingerprints are in there as well, for past employment.

prints for those not charged, or found innocent, are supposed to be expunged from the fingerprint database. i am not sure when they match prints-if it's at arrest, or after conviction. it's never been run thru the scotus either.

I suspect like IAFIS when they run a DNA profile thru the system it's cross checked against everything.

Would it have been OK to take his DNA sample, put it in the data base and then re-run the DNA taken from the rape against those on file? Chicken and egg sort of argument. When I consider all the crimes, just in Chicago, where DNA evidence was obtained being able to be matched against future arrestees I have great hope a lot of criminals involved in a lot of crimes will no longer be looking for prey. At least not outside of prison. Now if Illinois could put convicted murderers/rapists away for anywhere near what their sentences dictate we could see progress.

i suspect you need to read scalia's dissent.

another thought just hit me. the scotus just ruled a few weeks ago that you had to have a warrant for a blood draw, to check for alcohol level.

why do you have to have a warrant to draw blood, but not dna? isn't that inconsistent? seems to me it is.

As you know, I disagree with the DNA ruling, but I imagine it falls under what the SC considers "invasive." I guess they feel a cheek swab is not invasive, while a blood draw is.

i don't know that it was brought up. the majority only looked at dna collection as another tool to identify, but that's not what it was used for as scalia pointed out.
so, if it's really to obtain evidence, then it should fall under the same evidence aquirement rule as blood draw imo. whether a swab in the mouth, or a needle in the vein, it's invasive, isn't it?

Do you need a warrant to finger-print?

OK we could do a spit in the cup or a brushing of the hair to make it less invasive. It's an advance in criminal-science nothing more and nothing less. A far more accurate way of making an identification than finger prints.