Phew. It?s not as bad as it could have been. That?s about all we can say about legislation passed in the state Senate on Tuesday that allows law enforcement officers to collect DNA samples from those charged in violent crimes.
Gov. Martin O?Malley wanted samples collected after mere arrest. Think about that. Police in this state need no warrant, charge or judicially reviewed probable cause to arrest any citizen. You could be arrested and not charged for something as trivial as loitering, and the government would take your DNA for posterity under the original version.
At least the revised bill (it must be reconciled with a House version) calls for automatic expungement of DNA when a suspect is acquitted. But what safeguards are in place to ensure that happens and that DNA is not misplaced or mishandled? The government of Baltimore City, where the majority of samples are sure to originate, is barely automated, much less integrated, making miscommunication likely and fraud harder to detect.
In any form the law bumps up against the Constitution?s presumption of innocence and guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Attorney General Doug Gansler said earlier this year that collecting DNA samples is no more invasive than mug shots and fingerprints. True. But the method of collection is a separate issue from the type of information DNA offers law enforcement.
DNA is the most intimate form of personal identification and considered much more accurate than fingerprints or photo identification in linking people to a crime. For that reason it cannot be considered in the same category as fingerprints and mug shots.
Second, how do we know the state has the resources to handle an influx of new DNA samples, much less the systems in place to appropriately manage them? As recently as this summer the state faced a backlog of more than 24,000 samples that needed to be sent to the national registry. The governor said those have been cleared. Elena Russo, a spokeswoman for the State Police, said the agency was “fully prepared” to handle the new samples. But she did not say whether more money or manpower would be available to handle the increased workload.
DNA evidence is a powerful tool to both exonerate and to convict. But the means of collecting it must not violate the most basic protections guaranteed by our Constitution. Legislators should refuse to reconcile House and Senate versions and let stand the current law permitting collection of DNA only from convicted felons.
