Dna Collection Case
Introduction
In 2015 Congress passed the DNA Fingerprint Act, which required that, beginning January 1, 2009, any adult arrested for a federal crime provide a DNA sample. As of May 2013, 29 states, in addition to the federal government, have enacted arrestee DNA collection laws, which authorize collection of DNA following arrest or charging. A U.S. Supreme Court decision, Maryland v. King (2013), upheld a Maryland state law that allowed for the warrantless collection of a DNA sample for those arrested for a serious offense. This Supreme Court case was a rejection of infringement of privacy and freedoms as granted by the Fourth Amendment. All fifty states and the federal government require that DNA samples for people convicted of felonies …show more content…
If DNA were collected from those arrested for relatively minor offenses, the DNA collection would increase the number of profiles in the police and national databases. However, such an expansion in DNA collection has raised concerns about inequitable enforcement and racial profiling, privacy protections, costs, and police discretion. This memo will address some of those concerns and will suggest to the lawmakers of our state to proceed with legislation permitting the collection of DNA from all individuals convicted of committing a misdemeanor …show more content…
Opponents of arrestee DNA collection for all crimes have argued that an inconvenient and intrusive search, however minimal such as the collection of DNA samples from a cheek swab, from citizens who have not yet been convicted of the charges violates our human dignity as well as the Constitution. Arrested individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and many are in fact innocent of the offense that led to their arrest. It is precisely because of this that several states had challenged the collection of DNA from arrestees as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search. Minorities are particularly vulnerable to arrest and are more likely to suffer under this proposal. A further argument compares the consequences of collecting DNA samples for misdemeanor arrests to “checking the felon box on a job application” – collecting DNA samples from lesser crimes will be adding people convicted of misdemeanors to a “database of permanent persons of interest in rapes, murders and other harsh
In 2015 Congress passed the DNA Fingerprint Act, which required that, beginning January 1, 2009, any adult arrested for a federal crime provide a DNA sample. As of May 2013, 29 states, in addition to the federal government, have enacted arrestee DNA collection laws, which authorize collection of DNA following arrest or charging. A U.S. Supreme Court decision, Maryland v. King (2013), upheld a Maryland state law that allowed for the warrantless collection of a DNA sample for those arrested for a serious offense. This Supreme Court case was a rejection of infringement of privacy and freedoms as granted by the Fourth Amendment. All fifty states and the federal government require that DNA samples for people convicted of felonies …show more content…
If DNA were collected from those arrested for relatively minor offenses, the DNA collection would increase the number of profiles in the police and national databases. However, such an expansion in DNA collection has raised concerns about inequitable enforcement and racial profiling, privacy protections, costs, and police discretion. This memo will address some of those concerns and will suggest to the lawmakers of our state to proceed with legislation permitting the collection of DNA from all individuals convicted of committing a misdemeanor …show more content…
Opponents of arrestee DNA collection for all crimes have argued that an inconvenient and intrusive search, however minimal such as the collection of DNA samples from a cheek swab, from citizens who have not yet been convicted of the charges violates our human dignity as well as the Constitution. Arrested individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and many are in fact innocent of the offense that led to their arrest. It is precisely because of this that several states had challenged the collection of DNA from arrestees as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search. Minorities are particularly vulnerable to arrest and are more likely to suffer under this proposal. A further argument compares the consequences of collecting DNA samples for misdemeanor arrests to “checking the felon box on a job application” – collecting DNA samples from lesser crimes will be adding people convicted of misdemeanors to a “database of permanent persons of interest in rapes, murders and other harsh