Almost half of America requires the police to take your DNA if you're accused of a crime.
Seattle, WA — Anthony Dias is the poster boy for why police and prosecutors hope Washington will join a growing number of states that require people to give DNA samples as soon as they're arrested for a serious crime, rather than waiting until they're convicted.
In 2005, Dias was released on bail while facing a felony hit-and-run charge in Pierce County. He went on to commit crimes against 19 more people before the year was up, including a half-dozen rapes. If he had given a DNA sample after his hit-and-run arrest, detectives could have caught him after the first rape - not the last.
"By the time he committed his next rape crime, he could have been identified, arrested and taken off the streets," Charisa Nicholas, who was tied up and forced to watch as her roommate was raped, told lawmakers recently. "My case would have been the first case prevented."
Nevertheless, the rush to expand DNA's use in criminal investigations worries privacy advocates, and courts around the country have disagreed about whether such laws violate the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. Many judges have found that routinely collecting DNA from convicts is OK because, among other reasons, committing a serious crime reduces their expectation of privacy. It's not clear that reasoning would extend to people who have not been convicted and who are presumed innocent.
"The way judges come out depends in a sense on how much trust they have in the government," says Penn State Law School professor DH Kaye, who tracks the issue. "Some judges say, 'What's the big deal? It's like a fingerprint.' But DNA samples contain a lot of information, and other judges say that sooner or later somebody is going to abuse the system."
Under bills before Washington's Legislature, the state would collect DNA from people when they're arrested for nearly all felonies or for violating a domestic violence protection order. Once a judicial officer finds that the arrest was supported by probable cause, the State Patrol crime lab could test the DNA to create a profile and enter that profile in a nationwide database used to help solve crimes. The cost of the measure - more than $400,000 a year - would be paid with money from traffic tickets.
If the person is exonerated or not charged, they could petition to have the crime lab destroy their sample and profile. The lab would be obligated to do so, but could run a check on the profile first. (Just like getting you're records expunged from criminal databases. Does anyone really believe this?)
About half the states and the federal government have similar laws.
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