A divided Supreme Court issued an
important opinion today, Maryland v. King, saying that police are allowed to routinely take DNA
from those suspects they arrest without first securing a warrant. The important
criminal law decision equated a DNA cheek swab with the commonly accepted
practice of fingerprinting.
The case involved a woman who was
raped and robbed but police never were able to identify a suspect. Years later,
Alonzo King was arrested and charged with second-degree assault. Police took
advantage of the Maryland law which allowed warrantless DNA tests following
some arrests, and took a swab of King’s cheek. After putting the DNA into a
database, the police got a hit for the earlier rape and King was ultimately
convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Justice Kennedy, who wrote for
the five-justice majority, said that taking a DNA swab is like fingerprinting
and photographing which is already part of a legitimate police booking
procedure and is acceptable under the Fourth Amendment.
The case was seen as important
not only because of the increasing importance of DNA evidence, but also because
of how prevalent the practice already is among the states. As of today, at
least 28 states and the federal case engage in warrantless DNA collection. A
Maryland court that heard the case said the practice was illegal and said that
the state first needed approval from a judge before taking a suspect’s DNA. The
Maryland court said that a reasonable expectation of privacy prevented such
warrantless searches.
The Supreme Court disagreed with
the Maryland court and reinstated King’s rape conviction. Kennedy wrote that in
the way it was used in this case, DNA for the purpose of identification is no
different than matching someone’s face to a wanted poster or matching tattoos
to known gang symbols. According to the justice, the procedure of taking a swab
from a cheek is not substantially different than taking a fingerprint from a
suspect and matching it to those recovered from a crime scene.
The dissent was harshly critical
and led by outspoken Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia warned the public that
because of today’s decision anyone’s DNA could be taken and entered into a
national database if they are ever arrested for any reason. Scalia’s trouble
with the case was not about the taking of the DNA itself, which is seen as a
common step in many criminal investigations. Instead, the issue is one of
timing. Taking the DNA before a conviction and without judicial approval is
what Scalia had a problem with given that suspects are forced to divulge
incredibly valuable and personal information to law enforcement without any
judicial oversight.
Read the full opinion here.
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