Following its new trend of Police Case Tuesdays, on February 26, the Supreme Court dealt with yet another case about warrant rights and police powers under the Fourth Amendment. Unlike last week, when the Court handed down decisions for Florida v. Harris and Bailey v. United States, this week’s police case was argued before the Court, and now we must wait for their decision. The case in question? Maryland v. King (see here, here, or here), which was granted cert in November 2012. The main question of the case is whether states have the ability, under the Fourth Amendment, “to collect and analyze the DNA from people arrested and charged with serious crimes” (from SCOTUSblog). It’s interesting to note the difference between Maryland v. King and the three other Fourth Amendment cases that have been heard and/or decided by the Court throughout the month of February (Missouri v. McNeely, Florida v. Harris, and Bailey v. United States)—King deals with a state’s use of warrants and the way that the Fourth Amendment applies to states as a whole, while the other three cases all clarified ways that the amendment applies to policemen throughout America.
The circumstances behind Maryland v. King are also rather different than the three preceding police cases. There is indeed an arrest and the seizure of evidence without a warrant (more on that shortly), but the main issue behind the case is a law, not the actions taken by Maryland policemen. Passed in 1994, the Maryland DNA Collection Act allowed for the collection of DNA to “assist an official investigation of a crime; to identify human remains; [and] to identify missing persons,” among other things. In 2008, it was amended to allow Maryland to collect DNA from individuals “arrested for burglary, or violent crimes, at the time of their arrest” (from epic.org). It was because of this law that policemen collected “and logged in Maryland’s DNA database” after the arrest, but prior to the conviction, of Alonzo Jay King, Jr. King was arrested on both first- and second-degree assault charges, and his DNA was matched to a sample from an unsolved rape case. During his trial, King tried to suppress the evidence, but the judge refused, convicted him of first-degree rape, and sentenced him to life in prison. King appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals on the grounds that Maryland’s DNA Collection Act violated the Fourth Amendment; the Court of Appeals agreed with King and reversed his sentence (from Oyez). The case then came to the Supreme Court, and after today’s oral argument, the justices were divided along somewhat unusual lines.
As Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog reports, the Justices were “at odds on questions such as how much privacy an arrested individual can expect, when a court should give crime-solving superior rank over privacy, and whether the government can be trusted to limit how deeply it pokes into an individual’s entire DNA in a database.” It seems to me that King is certainly more difficult to tackle than the two cases that the Court decided last week, and is also more complex than Missouri v. McNeely (the blood-sample-without-a-warrant case). As someone who is deeply troubled by the prevalence in this country of rape and other such violent acts, I believe that DNA testing can be useful and, in many circumstances, necessary. Also, as the child of two lawyers, one of whom a prosecutor, I understand that warrantless evidence collection is, at times, the only way a case can be decided and justice truly achieved. However, as a private citizen, I think that the rights granted to me by the Fourth Amendment are extremely important. What if someone who was arrested, but not convicted, gets their DNA taken but is eventually found innocent? Where does one draw the line between an invasion of privacy and the pursuit of justice, and, more importantly, is the state of Maryland (and are all states) allowed, under the Fourth Amendment, to make that decision?
Lawyers admitted that “it might be easier to decide this case, [sic] if the Justices just waited a couple of years to see where DNA sampling technology may go” (from SCOTUS), which is true, but, in my opinion, advances in technology wouldn’t change the fundamental question behind King. Justice Scalia had a similar line of thought—according to him, “a lot of convictions would be obtained if there were no Fourth Amendment,” and Justice Kagan “suggested that the state’s argument would justify police… searching an individual’s house, just because that person had been arrested.” Justice Sotomayor also seemed to be against the Maryland law, suggesting that “if Maryland prevailed police might be able to advance crime-solving by pursuing anyone under state control, such as school children.” Chief Justice Roberts also seemed to question the law’s constitutionality, asking “how much privacy an arrestee would really have if, while in custody, the individual had taken a drink of water and left the cup behind, or a cigarette, that could be analyzed for DNA.” On the other side of the argument were Justices Alito and Kennedy, and while Justice Thomas remained characteristically silent, it is somewhat unclear where Justices Ginsburg and Breyer will fall on the issue.
The mere fact that this case has placed Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia on the same side as Justices Sotomayor and Kagan indicates that the issue is not clear-cut. I am curious to see what the Court decides, because many states have laws that are similar to Maryland’s DNA Collection Act. Depending on how the Court rules, states might lose their ability to collect DNA from individuals who have only been arrested, not convicted. In King, the argument boils down to an issue that has long been a problem in America’s judicial system—when does the pursuit of justice infringe on personal rights? I don’t have a concrete answer, but when the Court hands down its decision, I’ll be sure to let you know.