In Maryland v.
King, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures did not prohibit law
enforcement from collecting DNA samples from suspects arrested for serious
crimes. The majority of the court
concluded that taking and analyzing check swabs for DNA to help identify
arrestees is like fingerprinting, minimally intrusive and a reasonable police
booking procedure under the Fourth Amendment. In dissent, Justice Scalia said the Fourth Amendment forbids searching a
person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis to believe they committed
the crime. “I doubt that the proud men
who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their
mouths for royal inspection,” Scalia wrote.
Those in support
of this opinion see the case as an important weapon in the fight against crime,
while critics see the case as a significant infringement on privacy and Fourth
Amendment freedoms.
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