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Full-Text Articles in Evidence

On The 'Considered Analysis' Of Collecting Dna Before Conviction, David H. Kaye Jan 2013

On The 'Considered Analysis' Of Collecting Dna Before Conviction, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

For nearly a decade, DNA-on-arrest laws eluded scrutiny in the courts. For another five years, they withstood a gathering storm of constitutional challenges. In Maryland v. King, however, Maryland's highest court reasoned that usually fingerprints provide everything police need to establish the true identity of an individual before trial and that the state's interest in finding the perpetrators of crimes by trawling databases of DNA profiles is too "generalized" to support "a warrantless, suspicionless search." The U.S. Supreme Court reacted forcefully. Chief Justice Roberts stayed the Maryland judgment, writing that "given the considered analysis of courts on the other side …


Maryland V. King: Per Se Unreasonableness, The Golden Rule, And The Future Of Dna Databases, David H. Kaye Jan 2013

Maryland V. King: Per Se Unreasonableness, The Golden Rule, And The Future Of Dna Databases, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

In Maryland v. King, the Supreme Court applied a balancing test to uphold a Maryland statute mandating preconviction collection and analysis of DNA from individuals charged with certain crimes. The DNA profiles are limited to an inherited set of DNA sequences that are not known to be functional and that are tokens of individual identity. This invited online essay examines two aspects of an article on the case by Professor Erin Murphy. I question the claim that the case is pivotal in a conceivable abandonment of the per se rule that warrantless, suspicionless searches are unconstitutional unless they fall …


Unraveling The Exclusionary Rule: From Leon To Herring To Robinson - And Back?, David H. Kaye Jan 2011

Unraveling The Exclusionary Rule: From Leon To Herring To Robinson - And Back?, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule began to unravel in United States v. Leon. The facts were compelling. Why exclude reliable physical evidence from trial when it was not the constable who blundered, but “a detached and neutral magistrate” who misjudged whether probable cause was present and issued a search warrant? Later cases applied the exception for “good faith” mistakes to a police officer who, pursuing a grudge against a suspect, arrested and searched him and his truck on the basis of a false and negligent report from a clerk in another county of an outstand­ing arrest warrant. The California Supreme …


Dna Database Trawls And The Definition Of A Search In Boroian V. Mueller, David H. Kaye Jan 2011

Dna Database Trawls And The Definition Of A Search In Boroian V. Mueller, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

As a general matter, once the government acquires information from a permissible search or seizure, it can use this information in later criminal investigations. Courts have applied this simple rule to uphold the indefinite reuse of DNA samples acquired from convicted offenders. This essay describes the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ reliance on the rule in rejecting a convicted offender’s claim that his DNA sample and profile had to be removed from the federal DNA databank after he completed his sentence. Acknowledging that the rule permitting reuse should not be applied mechanically, I argue that the rule's application to DNA …


Dna Identification Databases: Legality, Legitimacy, And The Case For Population-Wide Coverage, David H. Kaye, Michael E. Smith Jan 2003

Dna Identification Databases: Legality, Legitimacy, And The Case For Population-Wide Coverage, David H. Kaye, Michael E. Smith

Journal Articles

Over the past decade, law enforcement authorities have amassed huge collections of DNA samples and the identifying profiles derived from them. Large DNA databanks routinely help to identify the guilty and to exonerate the innocent, but as the databanks grow, so do fears about civil liberties. Perhaps the most controversial policy issue in the creation of these databases is the question of coverage: Whose DNA profiles should be stored in them? The possibilities extend from convicted violent sex offenders to all convicted felons, to everyone arrested, to the entire population. This Article questions the rationales for drawing the line at …


The Constitutionality Of Dna Sampling On Arrest, David H. Kaye Jan 2001

The Constitutionality Of Dna Sampling On Arrest, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

Every state now collects DNA from people convicted of certain offenses. Law enforcement authorities promote offender DNA databanking on the theory that it will identify offenders who commit additional crimes while or probation or parole, or after they have finished serving their sentences. Even relatively small databases have yielded such dividends. As these database searches uncover the perpetrators of rapes, murders, and other offenses, the pressure builds to expand the coverage of the databases.

Recent proposals call for extending not merely the scope of crimes for which DNA databanking would be used, but also the point at which the samples …


Dna Typing: Emerging Or Neglected Issues, David H. Kaye, Edward J. Imwinkelried Jan 2001

Dna Typing: Emerging Or Neglected Issues, David H. Kaye, Edward J. Imwinkelried

Journal Articles

DNA typing has had a major impact on the criminal justice system. There are hundreds of opinions and thousands of cases dealing with DNA evidence. Yet, at virtually every stage of the process, there are important issues that are just emerging or that have been neglected.

At the investigative stage, courts have barely begun to focus on the legal limitations on the power of the police to obtain samples directly from suspects and to use the data from DNA samples in various ways. Issues such as the propriety of "DNA dragnets" (in which large numbers of individuals in a geographic …