Hot on the heels of its unanimous decision upholding a car search triggered by the alert of a drug-sniffing dog (Florida v. Harris, Docket 11-817), the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether being arrested is sufficient grounds for taking a sample of a person’s DNA (Maryland v. King, Docket 12-207).
In Maryland and 27 other states, DNA samples are collected from people arrested, usually for crimes involving violence (in other states, samples are not taken until conviction). Their DNA is analyzed and compared with samples in state and national databanks to see if it matches DNA collected from other crime scenes. Maryland police followed this procedure after arresting defendant King in 2009 on assault charges; three months later his DNA profile matched a sample in the state database collected from an unsolved 2003 rape case. After arguing unsuccessfully that taking the sample violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, King was convicted of the rape and sentenced to life in prison.
Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog frames the question before the Court: from whom can the police take a DNA sample, without that individual’s permission, without any advance reason to think that individual committed a particular crime, or without the advance approval by a judge through a search warrant?
