WASHINGTON, D.C. June 4 (DPI) — In one of the healthier political developments of this ultra-partisan era, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia voted with a minority that included Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the issue of law enforcement’s collection of DNA samples from crime suspects.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 upholding the right of law-enforcement officials to collect DNA samples, validation of an increasingly utilized police procedure that often links arrested individuals to old crimes. Civil libertarians of all stripes called the use of DNA samples -and storing that information, to be used later — as a form of excessive government power.
The conservative Scalia was among the four dissenters on the court, which included Ginsberg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, “When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody. Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” The Fourth Amendment upholds rights against unreasonable search and seizure by law enforcement.
Justice Scalia wrote that, “The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody.” He added, “Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”
For years Antonin Scalia has been vilified by the American left and pro-government supporters as a heartless conservative. Now, justices of differing philosophies and voting records converged on the civil-rights implications of the DNA ruling. As a result, posters on comment boards were downright confused in their support of Scalia’s position.
From NYTimes.com:
“Wow! Never thought I would agree with Justice Scalia, but, I do this time!”
“Scalia is right. No one argues that taking DNA from a convicted felon is prohibited. The issue here is whether it can be taken from a person who was the target of an in-field decision of a police officer to arrest, regardless of whether the person was in fact guilty of the suspected crime. Intrusion into the body of an individual and recordation of his bio-physical essence by government officials should require more justification than a police officer’s suspicion. The majority decision is inconsistent with the sovereignty of individuals vis-a-vis the state which is the fundament of the Bill of Rights.”
“I would have less of an issue with DNA being forcibly taken if, after checked against DNA crime scene records, the DNA was then dumped.
Checking my DNA, in other words, against some database does not worry me. That my (innocent) DNA must remain in a database where it might be used illicitly to incriminate me, this worries me. It should worry us all.
And honestly, I have heard no good nor reasonable argument as to why a person’s DNA should be kept on file in perpetuity. Innocent people commit crimes too (obviously). Ergo, as others have suggested, if we think a national database is so important in respect to criminal activity, then every single citizen should have his or her DNA on file, from birth, and we all should desire such a database to exist.
I wholly disagree with that idea, but it is only fair to consider everyone as potential lawbreakers, not just those who have been caught at it.”
Finally:
“Despite the dissent of the Ancient Supreme Dinosaur Scalia, The Supremes had it right. Eventually, every US citizen will have his/her DNA on file. New Brave World? Perhaps.”