Community Corner

Should DNA Be Taken Without Warrant?

The U.S. Supreme Court this week votes 5-4 in favor of allowing law enforcement to take DNA sampling from arrestees regardless of whether they are formally charged with a crime.

"Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the majority of the magistrates.

But the dissenting judges argued that due to the decision, anyone’s DNA, guilty or not guilty of a crime, could now be taken and entered into a national database without probable cause.

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More than two dozen states in the country take DNA from arrestees charged with felonies and other criminal offenses.  The data is then uploaded to a national database run by the federal government.

Proponents of broad DNA sampling say it will help police solve cold cases that need the evidence to gain convictions and nail suspects who may move to other states where the DNA requirement is not mandated, thus evading prosecution.

Find out what's happening in South San Franciscowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  • What do you think about the Court’s ruling?
  • Do you think it’s appropriate for an innocent person’s DNA to be entered into a national database?
  • Will the new mandate help police solve difficult cases?
  • Are DNA samples similar to fingerprints?


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