U.S.

Appeals Court: OK to check

DNA of those arrested
admin | Jul 26, 2011 | Comments 0

A closely divided 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found

that the collection of DNA samples from people arrested but not yet convicted of crimes is
constitutional, in an opinion released today.
In a precedent-setting ruling, the appeals court rejected U.S. District Judge David S. Cercones 2009 order
finding that law enforcement could not collect DNA from Ruben Mitchell, who faces a federal charge of
attempting to possess and distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine. Judge Cercone had found that
requiring pre-trial detainees to submit DNA samples, which is done under the DNA Analysis Backlog
Elimination Act of 2000, violates the 4th Amendments search and seizure rules.
In an 8-6 ruling, the circuit judges found that people who are arrested have a diminished expectation of
privacy in their identities. Outweighing their privacy, they found, is the importance to law enforcement of
correctly identifying people who are charged with crimes, determining their criminal history, potentially
linking them to unsolved crimes and promptly ruling out involvement in a crime in cases in which the DNA
does not match that found at the scene.
The majority opinion, by Judge Julio M. Fuentes, said that DNA matching promptly clears thousands of
potential suspects.
In sum, under the totality of the circumstances, given arrestees and pretrial detainees diminished
expectations of privacy in their identities and the Governments legitimate interests in the collection of DNA
from these individuals, we conclude that such collection is reasonable and does not violate the Fourth
Amendment, Judge Fuentes wrote.
Judge Marjorie O. Rendell wrote for six dissenting judges who found that the DNA Analysis Backlog
Elimination Act of 2000 overreached.
The privacy interests of arrestees, while diminished in certain, very circumscribed situations, are not so
weak as to permit the Government to intrude into their bodies and extract the highly sensitive information
coded in their genes, Judge Rendell wrote. Moreover, the Governments asserted interest in this case
the law enforcement objective of obtaining evidence to assist in the prosecution of past and future crimes
presents precisely the potential for abuse the Fourth Amendment was designed to guard against.