Ohio court: Old DNA in acquittals may be kept

DNA taken from someone acquitted of a crime may be retained and used in subsequent investigations, according to a unanimous opinion by the Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday that said such people dont have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

In the 7-0 opinion written by Justice Robert Cupp, the court said that if the DNA is obtained legally during a criminal investigation, it may be used in a separate investigation down the road.

The decision stems from the case of a Cleveland man who was acquitted in the 2005 rape of his girlfriends 7-year-old daughter but was later convicted of a 2007 murder.

Authorities had taken a DNA sample from Dajuan Emerson, 34, in the rape investigation. Emerson was acquitted, but the sample was retained in the FBIs Combined DNA Index System and matched blood found on a door handle at the scene of the 2007 murder of 37-year-old Marnie Macon of Cleveland.

Macon had been stabbed 74 times, and prosecutors said the lower half of her body had been sanitized in an effort to destroy any semen left behind.

Emerson, who is now serving a life sentence stemming from his aggravated murder conviction, had argued that the state violated his constitutional rights by retaining his DNA and should only have used it for the rape investigation.

The justices denied that argument and said Emersons DNA was obtained through a proper search warrant and that he never challenged the validity of that warrant, noting that numerous courts across the country have examined the issue and reached the same conclusion:

A person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her DNA profile extracted from a lawfully obtained DNA sample, Cupp wrote.

Emersons Cleveland attorney, Robert Moriarty, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Emerson also had argued at trial that his DNA sample from the rape investigation should not have been used and unsuccessfully tried to get it suppressed.

Read the rest here:
Ohio court: Old DNA in acquittals may be kept