Appeals Court OKs California DNA Swabs of Felony Arrestees
By AP,
Associated Press
| 03. 20. 2014
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld California's law requiring people arrested for felonies to submit samples of their DNA to police.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday said a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a similar law in Maryland applies to California.
At issue is a law passed by voters in 2004 requiring that all people arrested in California on suspicion of committing a felony supply a DNA sample to police by way of a cheek swab. State Attorney General Kamala Harris and other law enforcement officials say the law is a powerful tool used to solve thousands of "cold cases." The DNA sample is loaded into a state database and compared against samples collected at crime scenes.
The American Civil Liberties Union objects to DNA collection because not all individuals arrested are charged and removing the sample from the database is a lengthy and complicated process.
The Ninth Circuit appeared ready to strike down the law after hearing a first round of arguments in 2012. But before the Ninth Circuit could...
Related Articles
By Nada Hassanein, New Jersey Monitor | 03.14.2024
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last year approved two breakthrough gene therapies for sickle cell disease patients. Now a new federal program seeks to make these life-changing treatments available to patients with low incomes — and it could...
By Liz Baker, Debbie Elliott, and Susanna Capelouto, NPR | 03.06.2024
The Alabama State Legislature passed a bill Wednesday night granting civil and criminal immunity for in vitro fertilization service providers and receivers.
Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed the bill into law within an hour of it passing the Alabama...
By Daniel Gilbert, The Washington Post | 03.07.2024
Vitaly Kushnir’s fertility clinic offers to screen an embryo to predict a baby’s sex, but the service can lead to ethically murky territory, like when a couple wanted it so their first child could be a boy.
But the couple...
By Mary Ziegler, Naomi Cahn, and Sonia Suter, MSNBC | 02.22.2024
This decision will affect the millions of people who become pregnant each year, their families, and their health care providers.
Last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court became the first in the nation to recognize frozen embryos as legal persons. The court’s...