Supreme Court to weigh criminal DNA law

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer

updated 6:12 PM EST, Fri November 9, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether police can take DNA samples from criminal suspects following their arrest, a case based on Maryland law with potentially national implications for the use of a popular investigative tool.

Justices will weigh a challenge to the state's law by Alonzo King, who was convicted of a 2003 rape on Maryland's Eastern Shore with the assistance of genetic material obtained following his arrest three years ago on an unrelated assault charge.

King moved to suppress the use of the DNA on Fourth Amendment grounds, but was ultimately convicted of the rape offense.

Federal law in 1994 created a national database in which local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies could compare and share information on DNA matches from convicted felons. But courts have been at odds on just when such samples can be collected and the information distributed.

A divided Maryland Court of Appeals agreed with King, saying suspects under arrest enjoy a higher level of privacy than a convicted felon. This, the court said, outweighed the state's law enforcement interests.

The appeals court also said that obtaining King's DNA immediately after arrest was not necessary in identifying him and that the process was more personally invasive than standard fingerprinting.

State officials asked the Supreme Court to intervene, saying the state court ruling "resulted in the loss of a valuable crime-fighting tool." They said that from a law enforcement and forensic perspective, there is no difference between fingerprinting and collecting "biometric information."

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Supreme Court to weigh criminal DNA law