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Full-Text Articles in Law

On The 'Considered Analysis' Of Collecting Dna Before Conviction, David H. Kaye Mar 2016

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

David Kaye

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 Mar 2016

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

David Kaye

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 …


Dna Database Trawls And The Definition Of A Search In Boroian V. Mueller, David H. Kaye Mar 2016

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

David Kaye

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 Typing: Emerging Or Neglected Issues, David H. Kaye, Edward J. Imwinkelried Mar 2016

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

David Kaye

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 area …


Dna Identification Databases: Legality, Legitimacy, And The Case For Population-Wide Coverage, David H. Kaye, Michael E. Smith Mar 2016

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

David Kaye

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 …