On DNA, Scalia was right

The Supreme Courts ruling last week, allowing police to compel DNA samples from persons arrested for serious offenses, will solve cold cases around the country and put dangerous criminals behind bars. But despite this clearly beneficial impact, the courts 5 to 4 ruling was wrong and may be more far-reaching than we can now imagine.

The words Antonin Scalia was right do not flow easily for me. But the courts most uncompromising conservative, who wrote a withering dissent, was correct when he issued a dire-sounding warning from the bench: Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of todays decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.

Eugene Robinson

Writes about politics and culture in twice-a-week columns and on the PostPartisan blog.

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The case, involving a Maryland law that mandates DNA collection, scrambled the courts ideological seating chart. Scalia, of all people, sided with the liberals, while Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, joined the conservative majority.

Maryland v. King was an appropriate test case. A man named Alonzo King was arrested in 2009 on an assault charge. Police in Wicomico County took a DNA sample by swabbing the inside of his cheek without obtaining a search warrant as permitted under Maryland law. Months later, Kings DNA profile was matched with evidence from a 2003 rape case. He was subsequently tried and convicted of the rape.

Its impossible not to applaud the result: A rapist who otherwise would have escaped justice was made to pay for his heinous crime. But the way this result was obtained, Scalia argued, ignores the Constitution.

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On DNA, Scalia was right