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MARYLAND DNA COLLECTION ACT (MDCA), Maryland v. Alonzo Jay King: Update by Defense Attorney Charles Ware

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STATE OF MARYLAND v. ALONZO JAY KING, cite as: 569 U.S. ___(2013); No. 12-207, Supreme Court of the United States, June 3, 2013.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in a 5 to 4 vote, decided and ruled on Monday, June 3rd, 2013, in this controversial Maryland case that:

When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and 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. 

BACKGROUND 

After his 2009 arrest on first- and second-degree assault charges, respondent King was processed through a Wicomico County, Maryland, facility, where booking personnel used a cheek swab to take a DNA sample pursuant to the Maryland DNA Collection Act (Act). The swab was matched to an unsolved 2003 rape, and King was charged with that crime. He moved to suppress the DNA match, arguing that the Act violated the Fourth Amendment, but the Circuit Court Judge found the law constitutional. King was convicted of rape. The Maryland Court of Appeals set aside the conviction, finding unconstitutional the portions of the Act authorizing DNA collection from felony arrestees.

 

SUMMARY SCOTUS DECISION

 

The police may take DNA samples from people arrested in connection with serious crimes.

 

Maryland and 27 other states, as well as the federal government currently authorize this DNA sampling practice.  All 50 states require the collection of DNA from felony convicts.  Law enforcement officials claim it is a valuable tool for investigating unsolved crimes.  But the Court in its 5 to 4 decision said the testing was justified by a different reason: to identify the suspect in custody.

 

When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and 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.

 

Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. He accused the majority of an unsuccessful sleight of hand, one that “taxes the credulity of the credulous.” The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, he said, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody.

 

But the Fourth Amendment forbids searches without reasonable suspicion to gather evidence about an unrelated crime, he said, a point the majority did not dispute. “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,” Justice Scalia said from the bench.

 

[District Attorney's Office for Third Judicial District v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009); Maryland DNA Collection Act, Md. Pub. Saf. Code Ann. §2-504 (Lexis 2011); Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 (1985); Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966); Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), Missouri v. McNeely, 509 U.S. ___ (2013); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U.S. 602 (1989); Veronica School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976); Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990); Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843 (2006); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989); Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103 (1975); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973); Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31 (1979)]

 

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