Merged Justices Allow Police to Take D.N.A. Samples After Arrests

daredelvis said:

Collecting DNA by the police is done PRIMARILY for identification!!

OK, I now see where the formatting makes the argument.

Daredelvis
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When I've said it in more than a FEW different posts, and you STILL don't understand my position, I assume you hadn't seen it, or you ignored it. I wanted to make sure you ACTUALLY saw it. (these caps show an inflection of my voice)

And no, it's not. You're incorrect. It's PRIMARILY used to tie a person, to a specific crime. My DNA does not prove who I am. My DL and mugshot, and other IDENTIFICATION paperwork, do.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
The decision specifies that the Maryland law it found constitutional limits DNA analysis of these samples to identification purposes (in other words, you'd still need a warrant to use the sample to check for familial relationship or something else).

I don't see a distinction, on the grounds you're pushing, between fingerprinting and DNA.
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You don't see a difference is using a fingerprint, which is very easily obtained, classified, and archived to identify a specific person, and collecting DNA to try to connect a specific person to a specific crime? I certainly do.

I've not read the ruling. Do you happen to have a link off hand? I'd like to read it.
 
triforcharity said:
All caps because I've only said it about 109 times or so....:rolleyes:
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And the argument that collecting DNA samples is different from fingerprinting in these circumstances based on the fact that fingerprinting is primarily used for identification doesn't hold water. As I said, the decision recognizes that this law limits the DNA analysis of these samples to identification. To use them for anything else would still require a warrant.

From the decision:

Finally, the Act provides statutory protections that guard against further invasion of privacy. As noted above, the Act requires that “[o]nly DNA records that directly relate to the identification of individuals shall be collected and stored.” Md. Pub. Saf. Code Ann. §2–505(b)(1). No purpose other than identification is permissible: “A person may not willfully test a DNA sample for information that does not relate to the identification of individuals as specified in this subtitle.”
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So again, your "primarily identification" argument doesn't distinguish between fingerprinting and collecting DNA samples for purposes of this case.
 
triforcharity said:
You don't see a difference is using a fingerprint, which is very easily obtained, classified, and archived to identify a specific person, and collecting DNA to try to connect a specific person to a specific crime?
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For purposes of the 4th Amendment challenge to the Maryland law, no.

In fact, the ease of use of the DNA [ETA: easier to store and match numbers than to deal with images of finger ridges] and its greater degree of accuracy in identifying a person (relative to fingerprints) is part of the state's argument that the court accepted in weighing the invasion of privacy v. the legitimate state interest.

And again, remember this is only something that can be done to a person arrested with probable cause of a serious crime and taken to the police station. Even though field collection of cheek swabs would be easy to do, the law in question doesn't authorize that practice.
 
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triforcharity said:
That's a weird way of putting it. So, forcing me to tell on myself, isn't really incriminating, because what REALLY is incriminating is the evidence left behind......Gotcha. Sorry Checkmite, you're wrong on this one.
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I am not: you are actually wrong about DNA being any different from a fingerprint. It serves the same function by the same mechanism; police take it for the same reasons and use it in exactly the same way.

When you are arrested for any crime, the police take your fingerprints and compare them to fingerprint evidence from unsolved crimes to see if there's a match. If so, you are charged; if not, the fingerprints are kept on file under your name so that if fingerprints are found at any future crime scene and turn out to match the prints the police have on file for you, you can be apprehended.

Now when you are arrested for any crime, the police can take your DNA and compare it to DNA evidence from unsolved crimes to see if there's a match. If so, you are charged; if not, the DNA profile is kept on file under your name so that if DNA is found at any future crime scene and turns out to match the DNA the police has on file for you, you can be apprehended.

DNA isn't words any more than fingerprints are; it's physical evidence. Physical evidence isn't protected by the fifth amendment. If the police show up at your house with a warrant permitting them to collect certain clothing or documents, you can't refuse to let them do that by evoking the fifth amendment protection from self-incrimination. Same thing.
 
I see DNA as the next step.
First fingerprints and how to lift them and compare was a breakthrough.

We have something better now. Why not go with it?

First we had propeller driven planes.
Now we have jets.
When the Heisenberg Compensator is invented, we'll have transporters.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
...There's a link to the PDF version in the first or second paragraph of the article mentioned in the OP. You can also find it on-line by searching Maryland v. King.
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This was what you told me. That I should read the Court case (which is probably thousands of pages long) and the ACLU brief and then I would see you're right, I'm wrong.

Did you read either one? Because you do a lot of quoting verbatim without ever supplying an actual quote or a link.

I'm not sure either one -- the court decision or the ACLU brief -- is available on line.

"I" linked to an ACLU web page about their suit and a news article about Maryland v King and which also quoted Scalia. A web page, a news story and excerpt from Scalia's opinion is not the same as reading the case and/or the brief, is it?
 
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Checkmite said:
<snip>

When you are arrested for any crime, the police take your fingerprints and compare them to fingerprint evidence from unsolved crimes to see if there's a match...
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That hardly ever happens. The main purpose of taking someone's fingerprints is to verify your identification in order to see if you have any outstanding wants or warrants.

This is what a cop I know told me. In most cases fingerprints taken of arrestees in New York are sent to the NY State Police database and to the FBI database in Washington (or Arlington or Quantico or somewhere). That his department, despite being a fairly large one, does not have the resources, the manpower or the desire to run prints of everyone who is arrested everyday. That even fingerprints are not routinely used for identification because in most cases the police are quickly satisfied the person is who they say they are. He told me, that a driver's license is still the best way to identify someone. That they can run a DMV check in a few seconds and the DMV database includes the person's photo.

Checkmite said:
Now when you are arrested for any crime, the police can take your DNA and compare it to DNA evidence from unsolved crimes to see if there's a match. If so, you are charged.
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I don't think that happens except rarely. There's too many unsolved crimes and in the vast majority there isn't any DNA evidence collected anyway. And cops I know say that the testing is still too expensive.

I know a detective who wanted a DNA test done and his department wouldn't authorize it because of the cost and because they thought the probability of a hit was too low. He got a technician with the NY State Police lab to run it primarily because he was personal friends with the guy. As I recall the result turned out to be inconclusive.
 
triforcharity said:
Wow, the 4th and 5th Amendment is irrelevant to you, eh? Please tell me this is just you trolling.
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I don't think that does violate either.

An infant can have committed no crimes at all, and a perfectly good DNA sample is available from the cord blood without bothering the child one bit. A drop should be on the official application for a birth certificate.

There will come a day, and soon, when your computer will know you by your DNA, you will sign your name with it, you won't even need to carry a credit card or a diver's license. And pretending to be you will become very very difficult, as would you pretending to be anybody else.
 
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BenBurch said:
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There will come a day, and soon, when your computer will know you by your DNA, you will sign your name with it, you won't even need to carry a credit card or a diver's license...
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Do you have a citation for that? That it will be soon?
 
newyorkguy said:
As Scalia said. That's very noble. Why not wait until he's been convicted of a crime? Again, the purpose of the Constitution is to protect citizens, not help the police.
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Why not just have everyone's DNA in a system... on file? What is wrong with that?
 
SumDood said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/supreme-court-says-police-can-take-dna-samples.html

So they compare taking DNA to fingerprinting and say they can take it after being arrested for a "serious offense" "supported by probable cause". I actually have no problem with this.
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Where I live it's mandatory to take DNA profiles of all suspects ("person of interest" in the US, I think) and keep them on file for 50 years, regardless of the severity of the crime and whether the person gets charged or convicted by anything later or not.
The profile is explicity chosen (by the US manufacturer) to convey no useful information about an individual as far as we know.

McHrozni
 
Caper said:
Why not just have everyone's DNA in a system... on file? What is wrong with that?
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Material expenses for a single profile are quite high, to the order of $40-80 per person, plus labor costs. The cost to profile all US population would therefore be quite high, you can get about two aircraft carriers with full figher complement for that.
It's questionable which is more useful.

McHrozni
 
Without commenting on the DNA question (as a police officer I see both sides...), how about this one:

Police departments, ours included, are increasingly using a technology called "ALPRS" or "Automated License Plate Recognition System". Cars are equipped with cameras which feed into a computer which receives daily updates from a wide variety of databases.
Stolen autos, wanted autos, sex offenders, terrorist threats, wants for municipal traffic violations... Just about anything.
Thing is capable of scanning large numbers of cars at a high rate of speed. There is a fairly high recognition-failure percentage, misreading digits, failing to remove stolen cars from the system when discovered....
However, we can stop and check drivers on receipt of a "hit"...

Is this a bit much? I don't think it's been challenged in court yet; evolving technology.
 
That's a good point. Where I live the PD has ALPRS but only in I think one car per precinct and they use it quite a bit but not 24/7 I don't think. I don't hear much about it. I think that should be allowable because it's reading plates that are issued by the state.

That's an interesting point though, about the false readings. That's one of the problem you don't hear about with DNA results. They're only as good as the lab technician who processes them. In fact North Carolina had a whole series of problems with things like improper storage, cross contamination of samples, etc. In one famous case a Michigan lab placed a convicted felon from Detroit at the scene of a cold case murder based on DNA analysis. The problem was, the felon was three-years-old when the murder was committed, at a location several hundred miles from where he grew up.

[In 2005] the Illinois State Police cancelled a contract with Bode Technology Group, one of the largest independent DNA labs in the country, expressing “outrage” over poor quality work.
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Link

What's scary is, if DNA testing puts someone at the scene of a crime it's almost impossible to get a jury to dismiss it, even when other evidence suggests it's possibly wrong.

Bikewer said:
Without commenting on the DNA question (as a police officer I see both sides...
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I appreciate that comment. I have a close friend who's been a police officer for twenty-eight years. And we were friends before he became a cop. In fact, I was once his supervisor! :D

He said he was surprised the Supreme Court is allowing DNA testing of persons arrested. He said that it seems to go against the presumption of innocence plus he doesn't see it as being of much practical value.
 
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