A issue from DNA collection

Unlike many friends and others who's opinion I highly respect, I agreed with the majority in Maryland v. King. I agree with Justice Scalia that what happens after the DNA is collected is a major issue, but the issue discussed in the case was not that but is the swabbing of salvia of an arrested felon during booking unreasonable under the 4th Amendment.

Now we have another issue from the ruling that ties into what Scalia mentioned in his decent. Good read.

Supreme Court Rules Police Can Collect DNA Upon Arrest, But Can The System Handle It?

By Leischen Stelter

June 3, 2013 was a historic day for police agencies across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that law enforcement officers are not violating the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches by collecting DNA samples from suspects arrested for a “serious offense.”

“Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority, according to this news article.

This ruling legitimizes a procedure already practiced by many law enforcement officers across the country. News outlets reported that 28 states and the federal government now take DNA swabs after arrests.

...Dr. Vincent Giordano, program director of the criminal justice program at American Public University, agreed saying the lack of definition for the types of crimes considered “serious” could be problematic for law enforcement agencies.

“Most of us would agree that rape and murder are ‘serious’ crimes, but possession of marijuana might be considered serious to you, but not serious to me,” he said. “The lack of definition can open Pandora’s box and agencies and states are left trying to argue what the Supreme Court meant.”

Impacts on an Already Overtaxed System

Mark Bridgeman, a retired captain who served as a police officer for 26 years and is currently the President of the North Carolina Gang Investigators Association, has years of experience collecting and relying on DNA evidence. During his career, he worked many serial rape cases as a detective and then as a commander with a sexual assault task force.

“DNA is a wonderful tool, and it makes the world smaller for criminals, but we have to have the infrastructure behind it for it to be successful,” he said.

Currently in North Carolina, most agencies collect DNA after an individual is convicted. Now, with the Supreme Court’s ruling, more agencies may choose to collect DNA from those arrested, causing an influx of DNA samples that need to be processed by state and local crime labs. This would only worsen the already backlogged system experienced by many labs throughout the country, said Bridgeman.

It has been a priority within most states, as well as the federal government, to address the backlog in at DNA-processing labs. In 2011 and 2012, the National Institute of Justice’s DNA Backlog Reduction Program spent $163 million to assist states and local governments increase their capacity to process more DNA samples. The application timeframe for the FY 2013 DNA Backlog Reduction Program ended on May 13, just 21 days before the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Other than an influx of DNA samples into crime labs, Bridgeman does not expect there to be many other impacts on law enforcement agencies. Only minimal training is needed to take an accurate DNA sample, and most agencies will have their intake officers conduct that process when deemed appropriate...