WASHINGTON (CN) - A mandatory DNA test that tied a man to an unsolved rape case was not unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.
Maryland's DNA Collection Act authorizes state and local law enforcement to collect DNA samples from convicted felons as well as anyone arrested for a crime of violence, an attempted crime of violence, a burglary or an attempted burglary.
Alonzo King was subjected to a buccal swab in 2009 when he was arrested and charged with menacing people with a shotgun.
Police found that King's DNA matched a sample on file from a 2003 rape case that had gone cold.
King was tried and convicted for the rape, but the Maryland Court of Appeals set the conviction aside after determining that the cheek swab at King's assault booking in 2009 was an unreasonable search.
The case drew interest from several interest groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which said that citizens have a privacy interest over their DNA.
Favoring the state Monday, a five-member majority of the Supreme Court concluded that Maryland's law serves a legitimate government interest.
"Courts have confirmed that the Fourth Amendment allows police to take certain routine 'administrative steps incident to arrest - i.e., ... book[ing], photograph[ing], and fingerprint[ing],'" Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. "DNA identification of arrestees, of the type approved by the Maryland statute here at issue, is 'no more than an extension of methods of identification long used in dealing with persons under arrest.'"
The majority emphasized how criminals can evade photographic identification, and even alter their fingerprints, but can never escape their DNA.
Maryland's law is part of a national project to standardize collection and storage of DNA profiles, according to the ruling
"Authorized by Congress and supervised by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) connects DNA laboratories at the local, state, and national level," Kennedy wrote.
"All 50 states require the collection of DNA from felony convicts, and respondent does not dispute the validity of that practice," Kennedy added. "Twenty-eight states and the federal government have adopted laws similar to the Maryland Act authorizing the collection of DNA from some or all arrestees. Although those statutes vary in their particulars, such as what charges require a DNA sample, their similarity means that this case implicates more than the specific Maryland law. At issue is a standard, expanding technology already in widespread use throughout the nation."
To support Monday's finding, Kennedy quoted a different search ruling he penned last year, Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington.
