Yesterday the Supreme Court decided a case that one Justice called “perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that this Court has heard in decades.” A bare majority of the Court ruled that the police may take DNA from those arrested for, but not yet convicted of, “serious offense[s].” The case resolves a deep split among the lower courts; mostly resolves the constitutionality of the DNA-on-arrest statutes of 28 states, including North Carolina; and according to the dissent, is so deeply mistaken that if it is not wrong, “there is no such thing as error.” The case is Maryland v. King. History. The defendant was arrested for a felony assault after menacing a group of people with a shotgun. Maryland law provides that DNA must be collected from those arrested for burglary or a crime of violence. (As in many other states, if the proceedings don’t end with a conviction, the DNA sample is destroyed, and there are safeguards associated with the use of the DNA profiles, such as a prohibition on using the DNA for purposes other than identifying those who committed a crime.) Accordingly, as part of the booking process, officers took a sample of the defendant’s DNA by swabbing the inside of his cheek. The defendant’s DNA profile was subsequently tested, and matched that from a previously unsolved rape. The defendant was charged with the rape and moved to suppress the DNA results, asserting that the officers conducted an unlawful search by collecting the sample. The trial court [...]
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