100% EFFECTIVE.
I. Katie's Law (Proposed 2010).
Katie's Law, also known as the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010, is a proposed federal law to provide funding to states to implement minimum and enhanced DNA collection processes for felony arrests. The bill is named after Katie Sepich, who was brutally attacked outside of her New Mexico home in August 2003. She was raped, strangled, her body set on fire, and abandoned at an old dump site.
The proposed legislation encourages states to collect a sample through DNA profiling from individuals who are: arrested for, charged with or indicted for crimes involving murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, and kidnapping or abduction. The collected samples are included in CODIS which contains more than 5 million records and used by law enforcement agencies. DNA profiling is not the same as full genome sequencing and contains no genetic information. There are over 3 billion markers in the DNA molecule and only 13 of these markers go into CODIS.
Katie's attacker's skin and blood were found under her fingernails. This DNA profile was sent to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) where officials hoped a match would be made. A DNA match identified Gabriel Adrian Avila, who had been arrested in November 2003 for aggravated burglary and was serving time in the New Mexico Corrections System since November 2004. After being confronted with his DNA evidence, Avila subsequently confessed to the murder of Sepich.
Subsequently to Katie's killing, a "study" prepared by the office of the Governor of Maryland (Martin O'Malley) identified 20 violent crimes that "could" have been prevented (allegedly) if DNA samples had been required upon arrest for just three individuals.
Later, the Denver, Colorado District Attorney's office alleged in a released "study" of 47 violent crimes that these crimes "could" have been prevented if DNA had been collected upon felony arrest for five individuals.
II. Maryland DNA Act (1994).
Maryland's DNA Collection Act (the "DNA ACT") [1994; expanded in 1999, 2002, 2007 and 2009] authorizes law enforcement officers to collect DNA samples from a person who is arrested, but not yet convicted, for violent crimes or burglary.
III. Maryland v. King DNA Case (2009-2013)
In 2009, Alonzo Jay King, Jr. was arrested in Maryland on first- and second-degree assault charges
The Maryland DNA Act authorized collection of a DNA sample from King because assault is a violent crime. On the day of King’s arrest, personnel at the booking facility swabbed King’s mouth to collect his DNA sample and sent it for processing. When King’s DNA record was uploaded to the Maryland DNA database, it matched a DNA sample collected in an unrelated, unsolved 2003 rape case. The police had collected the 2003 DNA sample from the rape victim who underwent a sexual assault forensic exam. After a police detective presented the matching 2009 and 2003 DNA to a grand jury, the grand jury indicted King for first-degree rape. Later in 2009, the detective obtained a search warrant and collected a second DNA sample from King that also matched the 2003 sample.
Defendant King sought to suppress the DNA evidence, arguing that his arrest and indictment for rape were invalid as an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. He claimed that the DNA Act was unconstitutional. Alternatively, he claimed that even if the court decided the DNA Act was constitutional, the State failed to follow the DNA Act’s procedures when it collected his DNA because the State could not show that an approved person completed the collection or that it provided King with the required notice of the Act’s expungement provisions. The Circuit Court for Wicomico County denied King’s motion to suppress, upholding the constitutionality of the DNA Act and finding that King failed to show evidence that the warrant for his second DNA sample was invalid or improperly obtained. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.
Before King could proceed with an appeal, the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, issued a writ of certiorari to consider whether the trial court improperly denied King’s motion to suppress the DNA evidence. It determined that the DNA Act, as it applied to King in this case, was unconstitutional because when the court weighed King’s right to the expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches against the State’s interest in using his DNA to identify him for purposes of his 2009 arrest on assault charges, King’s privacy right was greater.
The State of Maryland appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
[www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/12-207; H.R. 4614 (2010), House of Representatives; Maryland v. King, 425 Md. 550, 42 A.3d 549 (2012); "President Obama Backs DNA Test in Arrests", Politico (2010-03-09)]
IV. MARYLAND DNA COLLECTION ACT (MDCA), MARYLAND v. ALONZO JAY KING: Update by Defense Attorney Charles Ware
STATE OF MARYLAND v. ALONZO JAY KING, cite as: 569 U.S. ___(2013); No. 12-207, Supreme Court of the United States, June 3, 2013.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in a 5 to 4 vote, decided and ruled on Monday, June 3rd, 2013, in this controversial Maryland case that:
When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
BACKGROUND
After his 2009 arrest on first- and second-degree assault charges, respondent King was processed through a Wicomico County, Maryland, facility, where booking personnel used a cheek swab to take a DNA sample pursuant to the Maryland DNA Collection Act (Act). The swab was matched to an unsolved 2003 rape, and King was charged with that crime. He moved to suppress the DNA match, arguing that the Act violated the Fourth Amendment, but the Circuit Court Judge found the law constitutional. King was convicted of rape. The Maryland Court of Appeals set aside the conviction, finding unconstitutional the portions of the Act authorizing DNA collection from felony arrestees.
SUMMARY SCOTUS DECISION
The police may take DNA samples from people arrested in connection with serious crimes.
Maryland and 27 other states, as well as the federal government currently authorize this DNA sampling practice. All 50 states require the collection of DNA from felony convicts. Law enforcement officials claim it is a valuable tool for investigating unsolved crimes. But the Court in its 5 to 4 decision said the testing was justified by a different reason: to identify the suspect in custody.
When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Justice Antonin Scalia summarized his dissent from the bench, a rare move signaling deep disagreement. He accused the majority of an unsuccessful sleight of hand, one that “taxes the credulity of the credulous.” The point of DNA testing as it is actually practiced, he said, is to solve cold cases, not to identify the suspect in custody.
But the Fourth Amendment forbids searches without reasonable suspicion to gather evidence about an unrelated crime, he said, a point the majority did not dispute. “Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” Justice Scalia said from the bench.
[District Attorney's Office for Third Judicial District v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009); Maryland DNA Collection Act, Md. Pub. Saf. Code Ann. §2-504 (Lexis 2011); Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753 (1985); Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966); Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U.S. 291 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), Missouri v. McNeely, 509 U.S. ___ (2013); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U.S. 602 (1989); Veronica School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976); Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990); Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843 (2006); Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989); Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103 (1975); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973); Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31 (1979)]
www.CharlesJeromeWare.com ("We fight. You win.")
Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is renowned and consistently ranked among the best attorneys and legal counsellors in the United States. [GQ Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Columbia Flier, USA TODAY, The Howard County Sun, The Anniston Star, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX-TV NEWS, WHUR, WHUT, MPT, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, ABA Journal, et al.]
Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is renowned and consistently ranked among the best attorneys and legal counsellors in the United States. [GQ Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Columbia Flier, USA TODAY, The Howard County Sun, The Anniston Star, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX-TV NEWS, WHUR, WHUT, MPT, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, ABA Journal, et al.]
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