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The harm is to presumption of innocence, by conviction through illegally obtained evidence. Joel Send a noteboard - 10/08/2013 11:07:59 AM

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View original postIts not invasive and it catches rapists and murderers. Where is the potential for abuse or harm here?

What happens to DNA samples for people that are later acquitted?

And why do you suddenly trust the government to properly care for / manage DNA samples when you don't trust it to do a single, solitary, good god-damn thing ELSE properly?


Again, the balance has to be against potential harm or abuse. I'm asking what that is quite openly cause I don't see it. I consider the size and extent of the government to be quite absurd but catching rapists and murderers falls pretty squarely within their legitimate domain. Tell me what potential for harm or abuse exists here? How is this different from finger printing?


It is not simply a matter of saying it endangers none but criminals (even if we ignore the possibility of planting DNA evidence or false positives.) Criminals still have rights; all the same rights as everyone else until/unless convicted. If police knock down every door in a neighborhood looking for a kidnapper, finding him behind one no more justifies knocking down that door than any of the others unless they had probable cause to suspect he was there, or a warrant to search the premises (which they cannot get without the aforementioned probable cause.) Likewise, if they get a warrant to search for stolen money and instead find a murdered hooker, that is poison fruit and inadmissable; a warrant is not a fishing trip, and an arrest certainly should not be.

At most, arrest grants (or rather, REQUIRES) probable cause to suspect commission of the SPECIFIC crime for which a person is arrested, or, in the parlance of the Fourth Amendment, "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Arresting someone for a simple assault, collecting their DNA and using it to convict them of an unrelated rape and murder after they are cleared of the assault is abuse of power. It is also precisely what happened here. Arresting someone for, say, driving drunk when stone sober, collecting their DNA and using it to convict them of murder is improper because 1) they had been proven guilty of nothing (and were thus entitled to presumption of innocence) and 2) there was no probable cause to suspect them of the specific crime they DID commit (only the one of which they are innocent.)

Unless DNA is collected as evidence of a crime of which they are already suspected AND subsequently convicted, or they are convicted of one WITHOUT the DNA as evidence, I cannot see it as anything but poison fruit, just like digging a murder weapon from under someones bed when investigating a false claim of drug possession.

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This message last edited by Joel on 10/08/2013 at 11:09:00 AM
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SCOTUS - Give the police your DNA! - 03/06/2013 08:31:27 PM 814 Views
Good for Scalia. And the other three, of course. - 03/06/2013 11:54:30 PM 491 Views
Breyer must have bumped his head the morning they wrote the decison! *NM* - 04/06/2013 01:20:23 AM 177 Views
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Well no... - 06/06/2013 05:13:43 PM 474 Views
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I dont really think it takes much care - 06/06/2013 05:08:38 PM 552 Views
It isn't the immediate harm, but the potential for abuse. - 06/06/2013 06:17:58 PM 477 Views
The harm is to presumption of innocence, by conviction through illegally obtained evidence. - 10/08/2013 11:07:59 AM 518 Views
Re: Why? - 11/06/2013 07:43:07 PM 472 Views
Don't know why it matters. DNA is on file. So what? Rape anybody lately? *NM* - 04/06/2013 04:09:08 AM 222 Views
Hey man, with your DNA, the government can clone you man..... - 04/06/2013 01:03:34 PM 449 Views
I'm a lefty, and I LIKE this decision - 11/06/2013 07:35:17 PM 482 Views

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