Ohio suspects' DNA can be saved for later cases, court rules

By Randy Ludlow

The Columbus Dispatch Thursday November 1, 2012 2:00 PM

DNA profiles obtained from felony suspects can be retained in a state database and used in subsequent criminal investigations even if suspects were acquitted in the cases in which samples were obtained, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today.

Retaining the DNA profiles of acquitted suspects does not constitute unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, the court said in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Robert R. Cupp.

The decision upheld an appellate court ruling in the case of a Cleveland man who was acquitted of rape in 2005 and charged with aggravated murder in 2009 when the rape-case DNA profile matched blood found at the murder scene.

Lawyers for Dajuan Emerson argued that the convicted killer had an expectation of privacy for his DNA profile since he was not convicted of the crime for which he provided a sample in response to a search warrant.

Emersons DNA profile could only be used in the rape case and its retention in the states Combined DNA Index System constituted illegal search and seizure when used to identify him as a suspect in the murder case, his lawyers said.

Cupp wrote that a DNA sample and a DNA profile differ. When the state tests a sample, the scientific process creates a profile that is a government work product in which criminal suspects do not have an ownership interest.

Retention by the state of a DNA profile for possible future comparison with profiles obtained from unknown samples taken from a victim or a crime scene does not differ from the retention by the state of fingerprints for use in subsequent investigations, the court stated.

Emerson, who was acquitted of raping a 7-year-old girl in 2005, was convicted of the aggravated murder of Marnie Macon, 37, who was stabbed 74 times in her apartment on July 4, 2007.

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Ohio suspects' DNA can be saved for later cases, court rules