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Supreme Court says police may take DNA samples from arrestees
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Washington Post
Posted: July 16th, 2013
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-03/politics/39704...
A divided Supreme Court ruled [on June 3] that police may take DNA samples when booking those arrested for serious crimes, narrowly upholding a Maryland law and opening the door to more widespread collection of DNA by law enforcement. The court ruled 5 to 4 that government has a legitimate interest in collecting DNA from arrestees ... to establish the identity of the person in custody. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia ... amplified his displeasure by reading a summary of his dissent from the bench. The court has cast aside a bedrock rule of our Fourth Amendment law: that the government may not search its citizens for evidence of crime unless there is a reasonable cause to believe that such evidence will be found, Scalia said from the bench. He added, Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of todays decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason. Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union said the decision creates a gaping new exception to the Fourth Amendment and violates a long-established understanding that police cannot search for evidence of a crime ... without individualized suspicion.
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