Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:47 pm
Maybe. Sounds totally legal and not at all quashing the 4th amendment.
Pretty much what the Supreme Court said. Voting went along some weird lines, though...thibodeaux wrote:If they can take your fingerprints, why not your DNA?
Kennedy wrote the decision, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
His [Justice Antonin Scalia's] argument is deeply flawed, because he did not get his history quite right.
His opinion opened with these lines: “The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment.”
But the Fourth Amendment’s text is not nearly so simple as he makes it out to be. It merely requires that all searches and seizures be not “unreasonable.” Its words do not distinguish between intrusions seeking “evidence of crime” and other sorts of intrusions — say, to collect revenue, or preserve public safety.
To take another example: the government requires people to pass through airport metal detectors, both to find evidence of crimes or the tools to commit them, like guns and bombs, and to save lives. These searches occur even when there is no basis for suspicion.
Proper DNA testing can simultaneously exonerate innocent people who have been wrongly accused and find the bad guys — a true win-win situation — and in the process, this amazing new technology can powerfully deter crime.