Posted on 06/03/2013 5:43:43 PM PDT by South40
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision Monday that police may take a DNA swab from people arrested for crimes without first getting a warrant to do so. In an unusual twist, the court's conservative firebrand, Antonin Scalia, joined three of his liberal colleagues in a scathing dissent that warns the court's decision paves the way for the creation of an invasive police state.
Scalia called the decision's scope "vast" and "scary," and said the DNA collection is an unequivocal violation of Americans' Fourth Amendment right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures" of their bodies and homes.
"Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of today’s 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," he wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Good for them.
Doesn’t explain why the lefties suddenly give a darn about the 4th amendment. Why isn’t the “living, breathing” document morphing the 4th amendment into nothingness as is the rest of it, thanks to Ruth and her cohorts?
Second from right to left: is that a male or a female?
That looks like that picture of Liza Minelli’s wedding to that freak Guest, with Liz Taylor and Michael Jackson as best man and maid of honor.
I am about to read the Opinion now to see if Scalia’s objection is simply that the DNA test is not instant, therefore cannot be considered in the same light as permissible fingerprinting. Or does he have a deeper Constitutional issue? I say this because “instant” DNA tests are just a matter of time.
Press Release of Senator Cruz
Sen. Cruz Statement on SCOTUS Decision in Maryland v. King
Contact: (202) 224-5922 / press@cruz.senate.gov
Monday, June 3, 2013
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) released the following statement on today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Maryland v. King:
Today’s unfortunate U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Maryland v. King, by a vote of 5-4, expands government power, invades our liberty, and undermines our constitutional rights. The Court held that the police can forcibly take DNA samples from people who have been arrested—but have not been tried or convicted—of a serious offense. So now the government can capture, without a search warrant, the most personal information about an individual, and use it to search vast databases for unrelated offenses.
All 50 States already collect DNA from convicted felons. So this intrusion of liberty will matter only for those not convicted: the innocent and wrongly accused or those for whom there is insufficient evidence to convict.
As Justice Scalia rightly noted in dissent, “As an entirely predictable consequence of today’s 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.”
All of us should be alarmed by this significant step towards government as Big Brother. The excessive concentration of power in government is always inimical to liberty, and a national database of our DNA cannot be reconciled with the Fourth Amendment.
Accumulating DNA from arrestees—without warrant or probable cause to seize the DNA—is not designed to solve the crime for which the person has (rightly or wrongly) been arrested. Rather, it’s to test the DNA against a national database to potentially implicate them in other unsolved crimes. But the Constitution requires particularized suspicion of a specific crime; indeed, the Fourth Amendment was adopted to prohibit the British practice of “general warrants” targeting individuals absent specific evidence of wrongdoing.
Justice Scalia’s scathing dissent is right: If we really want a DNA database to solve more crimes, then why not require DNA samples to fly on airplanes, get driver’s licenses, or attend public schools?
If the government has good cause for needing the DNA sample—such as trying to match DNA at a crime scene to a particular person where there is other corroborating evidence—then the government can ask a judge for a search warrant. That’s what our Framers intended—judicial checks on extensive government power to invade our personal lives.
Law enforcement is a paramount function of government. But we cannot allow that government function to run roughshod over the Bill of Rights. And, as recent events involving the IRS have demonstrated, unchecked government power—and intrusive personal databases maintained on the citizenry—poses real risks to our liberty.
###
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=342973
Our tax dollars at work
Judgement day cant come quick enough
“I’ll be right here in Vegas until the middle of June!”
Hey, Supreme Court, how about a DNA test before an abortion to see if the potential victim is a human PERSON?
“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”
— The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
“No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
— The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The potency of DNA evidence in both solving crimes and vindicating the wrongfully convicted weakens arguments against its collection after arrest and routine entry into criminal databases. After all, the Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” not against the identification of arrestees.
So what the heck happened to Alito, Roberts and Thomas? This should have been at least 8-1 against allowing DNA sampling when a person is arrested.
they’re using your DNA as a national ID number.
this is against the founders intent. they said a national id should never be enacted... and for good reason. if one had existed during their time, the crown could have found them easier and crushed them all
‘That may have had something to do with the allegations that he was the father of a boy by a black hooker in Little Rock.’
Or an unsolved rape in White Chapel!
Good point. I had forgotten about the mystery of why Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton left Oxford without a degree.
As a reminder the 4th explicitly guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons."
Scalia is right. And like a broken clock, the libs got this one correct.
Of course I agree with Scalia but . . . I guess I agree with the Liberals. Who knew?
SCOTUS is moving us closer and closer to a police state. As a Prosecutor I was well aware of the power of the State. Believe me. They don’t need any silly conspiracy theory. If they want you, they get you. It is that simple.
Horrible ruling.
Scalia is correct imho and he sees the police state gaining momentum just like we do which is why he has been solid on 4th Amendment cases in opposing more state power at the expense of individual rights.
How are they collecting? What’s the process?
The ACLU often spaeks for the left on constitutional matters: The American Civil Liberties Union said the court’s ruling created “a gaping new exception to the Fourth Amendment.”
“The Fourth Amendment has long been understood to mean that the police cannot search for evidence of a crime – and all nine justices agreed that DNA testing is a search – without individualized suspicion,” said Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU’s legal director. “Today’s decision eliminates that crucial safeguard. At the same time, it’s important to recognize that other state laws on DNA testing are even broader than Maryland’s and may present issues that were not resolved by today’s ruling.”
That’s fine. If you have DNA evidence at a crime scene and reasonable cause to suspect an individual of being involved in that crime, the police can go to a judge and get a warrant.
Kennedy’s majority opinion specifically mentioned DNA as a method of identification (which I assume was the point the poster was alluding to). Why are fingerprints no longer sufficient?
It is still incredibly expensive to record a complete genome for one individual. DNA ‘fingerprinting’ is only a small part ~ http://dnafingerprinting19.tripod.com/id1.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.