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Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley Behind the Magic: Why DNA Testing is not the Fingerprinting of the 21st Century

UCLA Law professor Jennifer Mnookin recounts an experience she had while talking to the person seated next to her during a crowded flight. After professor Mnookin explained what she did for a living the person next to her smiled and said, I LOVE forensic science, I watch CSI whenever I can. They can do such amazing things. Its all so high techand incredibly accurate! Its almost like magic isnt it? She then asked professor Mnookin if real life forensic science was like CSI. Professor Mnookin explained that in real life forensic science is nowhere near as glossy, speedy or foolproof as what the general population sees on TV. The person in the seat next to her was disappointed and said, thats too bad. Well, to tell you the truth, I think Id rather keep believing in the television version.1 Although television can make the forensic techniques police and prosecutors use look almost foolproof and magic, in real life every forensic technique carries with it a chance of error, a risk of being wrong, or sometimes it risks being invasive and violating the rights and freedoms protected by the United States Constitution. Recently the courts have struggled with the question of when is it constitutional for police to require a DNA sample, and after acquiring that DNA sample is it constitutional to check that sample against a federal database of unsolved crimes? More specifically, the Supreme Court recently heard a case challenging the constitutionality of the Maryland DNA Collection Act, a law which requires DNA samples from all arrestees.2 Alonzo Jay King was arrested in 2009 on charges of first and second degree assault. Upon arrest King was forced to give a DNA sample that matched the profile of an unsolved

Jennifer L. Mnookin, The Courts, the Nas, and the Future of Forensic Science, 75 Brook. L. Rev. 1209 (2010) Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1236 (2013)

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

robbery and rape case. Upon conviction King appealed, attacking the constitutionality of the Maryland DNA Collection Act on the grounds that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights.3 But where some see a violation of constitutional rights, others see a natural technological progress of past police practices. Justice Samuel Alito framed the issue in oral arguments in Maryland v. King by asking why isn't [DNA testing] the fingerprinting of the 21st century? What is the difference? This paper seeks to answer this question by examining the technique, history, as well as policy advantages and controversies of both fingerprinting and DNA testing before giving an analysis in how the techniques are alike, where they differ and what this should mean for the courts and policy makers. I. FINGERPRINTING Technique Although television has educated the general public to the fact that fingerprinting works, few outside of law enforcement understand how fingerprinting works. Humans have ridges and tiny pores on the soles of their feet, palms and fingertips. These ridges make gripping easier than it would be with just smooth skin. The tiny pores on the ridges release an oily residue or sweat which is always on the finger, and when the finger touches something a print is left.4 Fingerprinting is divided into a two part process: first, collect latent prints and second, compare those prints to known prints. Latent prints are what fingers leave behind when they touch objects. They are what police find at a crime scene, and are usually incomplete and sometimes smudged. The prints contained in the federal database are called known prints because they are complete

King v. State, 425 Md. 550, 556-58, 42 A.3d 549, 553-54 (2012), reconsideration denied (May 18, 2012), cert. granted, 133 S. Ct. 594, 184 L. Ed. 2d 390 (U.S. 2012)
4

Katherine Schwinghammer, Fingerprint Identification: How "The Gold Standard of Evidence" Could Be Worth Its Weight, 32 Am. J. Crim. L. 265, 271 (2005)

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

prints taken from arrestees and the police know who the prints belong to. The latent prints are compared to the known prints to see if investigators can identify a match.5 Fingerprint experts follow a process called ACE-V, an acronym which stands for analysis, comparison, evaluation and verification, to determine if the latent and known prints are a match.6 First, an investigator finds a fingerprint at the scene of a crime and analyzes the print to see if the print is complete enough to be useful. Next, the expert compares the latent print to a known fingerprint in a database. Third, the expert evaluates the commonalities and differences between the latent and known print and reaches the conclusion of either identification, exclusion or inconclusive. If the print is determined to be a match, a second expert verifies the work by going through the same steps. However, the second expert knows the conclusion reached from the first evaluation, a practice which has been criticized because it may influence the second experts judgment.7 History Fingerprinting as a forensic science developed toward the end of the 19th century as an effort to identify criminals and prevent recidivism.8 The 19th century and the industrial age presented law enforcement with new challenges, since urbanism gave rise to anonymity of criminals. England scrambled through various techniques of identificationsuch as drawing portraits of convicts and recording scars and other indentifying featuresbut, these techniques

Dorothy E. Schmidt, A Dark and Stormy Night: The Mystery of the Missing Science in Fingerprint Identification, 75 Def. Couns. J. 47, 61 (2008)
6

Mnookin, supra note 1, at 1209

Id. at 1218 Schwinghammer, supra note 4, at 273

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

proved to be impractical.9 In 1859 Englishman William Herschel began collecting his friends fingerprints as a hobby. He noticed that the prints did not change over time, and he observed that between himself and those collected there were no two fingerprints alike. Herschel teamed up with Francis Galton (a cousin of Charles Darwin) to make the claim that every single fingerprint was unique and remained the same the duration of a persons life.10 Henry Faulds, another Brit and contemporary of Herschel and Galton, was also experimenting with fingerprinting. Faulds was serving as a physician in Tokyo when he noticed that potters left finger marks on the pots.11 He hypothesized that fingerprints might be unique to individuals and reported using greasy finger-marks to solve a minor crime.12 However, unlike Herschel and Galton, Faulds was more scientific in his approach in attempting to verify his hypotheses with more data than just the anecdotal collection he was able to assemble. Also, unlike Herschel and Galton, Faulds only hypothesized that fingerprint sets of all ten digits were unique to a person and not each individual print. He continued to collect fingerprint sets until economic constraints forced him to quit. He never proved that every persons had a unique set of fingerprints to his satisfaction.13 Faulds is an important name in the history of fingerprinting because he was the first critic of the hypothesis that each individual fingerprint was unique. He observed that no one had ever conducted a scientific study to prove the uniqueness of each individual fingerprint; yet, the use of fingerprints in courts as evidence depends heavily on the uniqueness hypothesis.14 Faulds still

Id. Id.

10

11 12

Id. Id. 13 Id. 14 Schmidt, supra note 5, at 48.

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Jason Bentley

believed that fingerprinting had great potential for both investigative and identification purposes, but he wanted to investigate whether each human fingerprint was actually unique by getting a better sample collection from many different places, including other communities and nations. There was, unfortunately, very little interest at the time, and that lack of interest persists until this day. One of the fundamental assumptions of fingerprint evidencethat no two fingerprints are identicalhas never been scientifically proven.15 Meanwhile, fingerprinting was becoming a popular means of identifying convicts and solving crimes. Mark Twain used the practice in as a plot device in one of his stories. The first time fingerprints were recorded as being submitted as evidence in a criminal case was in 1898 in Bengal to solve a murder of a slave master. Since there were no fingerprint experts at the time the judge and his counterparts examined the bloody fingerprint left by the killer themselves and concluded the defendant was guilty. Eventually Scotland Yard began using fingerprinting as a technique in the United Kingdom.16 In 1910 Illinois prosecutors introduced fingerprints as evidence in the criminal case People v. Jennings. The prosecution presented, among other evidence, four fingerprint experts who testified that the fingerprints left on recently painted rails at the crime scene matched Jennings prints.17 On appeal, Jennings lawyer argued that fingerprint evidence should not be admitted in court without statutory authorization. The Illinois Supreme Court disagreed, citing that the method was used by Scotland Yard for two decades and considered reliable in England.18 Pros and Cons

15

Schwinghammer, supra note 4, at 282

16 17

Id. at 275-277 People v. Jennings, 96 N.E. 1077, 1079 (1911) 18 Id. at 1081

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

Fingerprints provided an effective means of identifying criminals at the beginning of the 20th century.19 However, in the 21st century fingerprinting is primarily used to tie past arrestees to a crime scene. The database which was originally created to identify repeat offenders is now used to identify and catch suspects who have fingerprints in the database. As a forensic technique, fingerprinting became popular within the criminal justice system so fast the courts never articulated why a database that was originally created for identification can now be used primarily for investigation.20 When proponents of the Maryland DNA Collection compare DNA testing to fingerprinting they are drawing attention to this point. Yes, fingerprinting is still good for identificationthough nowhere near as needed as it was one hundred years agobut police are equally motivated by acquiring information that will make solving future and past crimes easier. If using the booking process to collect prints that everyone knows will be used to solve other crimes is not unconstitutional, why should DNA be different? With technological advancements, DNA will soon be even better at identification than fingerprinting is today. However, in the meantime, fingerprinting provides law enforcement with a way to link suspects to a crime scene and solve otherwise unsolvable mysteries. Despite the aura of infallibility often attributed to fingerprinting, the criminal justice system runs the risk of false convictions unless investigators and prosecutors recognize the limitations and flaws of checking prints. First, the uniqueness of each individual fingerprint has never been tested by anyone, let alone proven.21 A second problem is that despite claiming a zero percent error rate, no system is perfect and will always have some possibility of error. 22 With fingerprinting this could occur because a latent print is rarely going to be a complete print. Also,

19 20

Schmidt, supra note 5, at 48 Schwinghammer, supra note 4, at 282 21 Id. 22 Schmidt, supra note 5, at 50.

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

sometimes several prints at a crime scene overlap and investigators run the risk of incorrectly combining two different prints. Third, fingerprint experts are usually operated by law enforcement or the prosecutors office and as a result tend to be biased towards conviction.23 These concerns should not be exaggerated to make fingerprint evidence appear invalid. Fingerprints are an accurate tool used by law enforcement to solve crimes, however, when a prosecutor or investigators case relies entirely on fingerprint evidence understanding these limitations are important to avoid arresting and trying innocent people. Highlighting the dangers of over reliance on fingerprinting is the FBIs embarrassing arrest of Brandon Mayfield. After the Madrid bombing in 2004 the FBI identified one of the fingerprints at the crime scene as belonging to Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon attorney.24 The FBI bugged and searched Mayfields house and eventually detained him for 14 days. When the FBI reported to the Spanish government that they believed Mayfield was part of the bomb plot, the Spanish told the FBI that the Spanish investigators had good reason to believe the crime was committed by local Moroccans.25 After the investigation, the FBI eventually had to issue a formal apology to Mayfield because eventually the evidence as a whole exonerated him of any wrong doing.26 This unfortunate violation of a citizens rights could have been avoided had the FBI had a healthier appreciation that although an accurate tool, fingerprinting is not some infallible CSI magic trick we see on TV, but a method which is useful but also has a chance of error. II. DNA TESTING Technique

23 24

Schwinghammer, supra note 4, at 288 Id. at 285 25 Schmidt, supra note 5, at 48 26 Id.

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

Unlike fingerprinting, there is plenty of scientific data to support the current techniques used for DNA testing.27 DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid, which is contained in each of the nuclei of every cell in the human body. Although each humans DNA shares many similarities, there are enough differences between each DNA to make each human DNA unique.28 Unlike fingerprinting, the uniqueness of each individuals DNA is scientifically proven.29 The one exception is that identical twins share the exact same DNA and siblings share a lot of similarities.30 Similarities between siblings have allowed law enforcement to deduce that partial DNA matches mean that the sample DNA is a sibling of name in the databank.31 Like fingerprinting there are two parts to DNA evidence: first, law enforcement collects unidentified DNA at a crime scene and second, they compare the unidentified DNA sample to known DNA matches in a federal databank known as CODIS (short for Combined DNA Index System). The most common types of DNA samples found at a crime scene are blood, saliva, and in rape cases, semen. However, technology is developing so that law enforcement will be able to find and use even smaller and less complete DNA to use as evidence.32 CODIS was started by the FBI in 1990, and stores samples collected by federal, state and local law enforcement.33 Just as Mark Twian increased the popularity of using fingerprints to catch criminals, CODIS has become known in recent years to many American TV viewers through CSI, Dexter, Criminal Mines, Bones and Law and Order SVU. History
27

Ashley Eiler, Arrested Development: Reforming the Federal All-Arrestee DNA Collection Statute to Comply with the Fourth Amendment, 79 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1201, 1204 (2011) 28 Lina Alexandra Hogan, Fourth Amendment-Guilt by Relation: If Your Brother Is Convicted of A Crime, You Too May Do Time, 30 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 543, 547 (2008) 29 Id. 30 Eiler, supra note 27, at 1204 31 Hogan, supra at note 28, at 545 32 Id. at 543 33 Id. at 547

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

Police began using DNA evidence to identify rapists and violent criminals. However, as the usefulness of DNA testing became apparent, both federal and local law enforcement agencies began to widen the net of people they collected DNA samples. As this happened, it became customary to obtain DNA samples from every convict of a felony.34 Most recentlyand controversiallymany states are collecting samples from arrestees.35 DNA evidence is controversial because the information contained in a DNA sample is so fluid in its potential to be used in many different ways. DNA could be used to verify an identity of an arrestee. It can also be used to solve cold cases or exonerate innocent defendants who were wrongfully convicted. It could potentially be used to look into the most intimate parts of a human being, like what is this persons propensity for heart disease, addiction, depression, and other things.36 It also holds the ability to generate probable cause for a sibling of a convict or arrestee.37 Although federal circuit courts have approved the current FBI databank, the courts have used two different legal theories and have only approved of DNA collection of convicted felons. The Supreme Court has not addressed the issue of DNA testingexcept for oral arguments in the King caseso there is no case that binds all lower courts. As a result the lower Courts have come to identical results, but are divided on the legal justification for DNA collection. A majority of the lower circuit opinions have used the totality of the circumstances test which examines government interests in collecting DNA and balances them against the privacy interests of the defendant.38 In determining privacy rights, these courts have looked to the
34

John D. Biancamano, Arresting DNA: The Evolving Nature of DNA Collection Statutes and Their Fourth Amendment Justifications, 70 Ohio St. L.J. 619, 620 (2009) 35 Eiler, supra note 27, at 1208 36 Id. at 1224 37 Hogan, supra at note 28, at 550 38 Eiler, supra note 27, at 1213

Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

Supreme Courts continuum of liberty doctrine that was established in Samson v. California.39 The Samson decision said that parolees had less liberty than a free citizen and a lower expectation of privacy, therefore, a California law allowing for warrantless searches was Constitutional. Likewise, theses courts reasoned that the privacy interests of convicts are less than free citizens and the governments interest in preventing recidivism would outweigh the privacy interest of convicts.40 A minority of federal circuit courts examine the constitutionality of DNA collection using the special needs doctrine, which asks if the police are performing a special need beyond law enforcement that renders the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.41 Where special needs focuses on the identifying feature of DNA collection the totality of the circumstances approach focuses on the reduced privacy expectation of convicts.42 Both of these doctrines have led courts to uphold laws that collect DNA from convicted felons. However, once laws begin to include arrestees in the equation a lot of the rationale behind the case law begins to implode, as is being shown in Maryland v. King illustrates. Maryland argues both that arrestees have a lower expectation of privacy and that the DNA sample is needed to identify the arrestees. But Maryland Court of Appeals struck down the law which collected DNA samples from arrestees because arrestees still have a sufficient expectation of privacy to not be forced to give a sample.43 They also ruled that fingerprinting would do just fine to be able to identify the suspect.44 At oral argument before the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court seems split down the middle--with a slight advantage to uphold the Maryland Court of Appeals ruling. A few of the justices voiced the concern that collecting DNA from

39 40

Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 848, 126 S. Ct. 2193, 2197, 165 L. Ed. 2d 250 (2006) United States v. Kincade, 379 F.3d 813, 839 (9th Cir. 2004) 41 New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 351, 105 S. Ct. 733, 747, 83 L. Ed. 2d 720 (1985) 42 United States v. Mitchell, 681 F. Supp. 2d 597, 602 (W.D. Pa. 2009) rev'd, 652 F.3d 387 (3d Cir. 2011) 43 King v. State, at 558 44 Id.

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Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

arrestees would be akin to searching their house to see what other crimes they had committed, and that an arrestee ought to have a higher expectation of privacy than that. Thus, both the totality of the circumstances and special needs doctrine failed to persuade the Maryland Court of Appeals, and most likely will also fail at the US Supreme Court to uphold a law that collects DNA from arrestee absent a warrant. In support of the special needs exception is the analogy that DNA testing is the fingerprinting of the 21st century. Fingerprinting, they would argue, was a 20th century way of both identifying arrestees and convicts as well as solving crimes. Likewise, DNA evidence does both of these things only more accurately. The Virginia Supreme Court articulated this position in Anderson v. Commonwealth. The court relied on the analogy that fingerprinting was just part of the booking process because the state had legitimate state interest in identifying an arrestee.45 The just like fingerprinting argument gives a tangible example of how evidence gained in common booking procedures are used in other investigations without violating the Fourth Amendment. Pros and Cons The statistics of what DNA testing has been able to do is quite impressive. In Maryland v. King, the petitioner began her argument before the Court saying, Since 2009, when Maryland began to collect DNA samples from arrestees charged with violent crimes and burglary, there have been 225 matches, 75 prosecutions, and 42 convictions, including that of Respondent King.46 Though other hard numbers are harder to come by, at least a handful of men and women wrongfully convicted gained their freedom, and police are able to solve old cold cases. But

45

Anderson v. Com., 274 Va. 469, 475, 650 S.E.2d 702, 705 (2007) http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-207.pdf, lines 11-15 on page 3.

46

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Cyberlaw

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critics argue that these successes come at too high a price that society will pay because of less respect for the privacy of law abiding citizens. One major concern is that under the current system, once one member of a family is arrested, everyone else in the family has part of their DNA in CODIS. Many studies show that there are no similarities between family members fingerprints,47 however, with DNA siblings will share a lot of the same DNA and identical twins have an exact match. If one identical twin is arrested, CODIS now has the DNA of both in the system even though the other twin committed no crime. Twins would be a rare situation, however, the more common scenario is that once a person is arrested and submits their DNA to the CODIS system, part of each siblings DNA is in the system. When law enforcement runs a DNA check and finds a partial match in the CODIS system they conclude that the DNA must belong to a sibling. Investigators would use the partial match as probable cause to get a warrant to obtain an actual DNA sample from the sibling. Although catching criminals is an important state interest, the CODIS databank allows police to be able to reasonably infer the DNA of law abiding citizens if their siblings had been arrested or convicted. Another concern is that because DNA is considered to be the blue print of the human body it contains private information which could be misused.48 Law enforcement responds that this isnt true because they only use a part of the DNA that doesnt reveal any intimate details. This is sometimes called junk DNA since, unlike the rest of the genome, currently scientists do not know what that part of the DNA is for. However, recent studies are showing that someday even junk DNA may be able to tell law enforcement intimate details about a suspect.49

47

Corey Preston, Faulty Foundations: How the False Analogy to Routine Fingerprinting Undermines the Argument for Arrestee DNA Sampling, 19 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 475, 491 (2010) 48 King v. State, at 609 49 Paul M. Monteleoni, DNA Databases, Universality, and the Fourth Amendment, 82 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 247, 252 (2007

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Cyberlaw COMPARING AND CONTRASTING

Jason Bentley

Although many surface aspects of fingerprinting and DNA testing appear similar, these techniques are different in their scientific nature, as well as the scope intimate details disclosed by collection. That advocates and judges would see similarities between the two is understandable. Both are used to confirm identity upon arrest in most states. Both contain databanks that law enforcement across the country can use in solving current and cold cases. The initial cosmetic similarities of both techniques are so obvious it is easy to overlook the fact that for both better and worse DNA testing and fingerprinting are different in many respects. First, the courts have given considerable more scrutiny to the scientific methods of DNA testing than they have thus far to fingerprinting. Some courts have listened to arguments for more scrutiny for fingerprinting,50 however, fingerprint experts still boast an error rate of zero something no scientist would do.51 Both in the Jennings case and in most modern cases the court has relied on fingerprinting reputation.52 DNA testing, on the other hand, has gone through the Daubert tests. DNA is also useful for other things other than just investigating crimes, making the community of scientists able to comment on it larger than just people in law enforcement. This additional scientific input has created a technique that has been categorized as better than fingerprinting. Although fingerprinting is reliable, law enforcement and fingerprint experts should take steps to avoid another Mayfield incident. Some suggestions from commentators include using the current fingerprint database and advances in technology to finally test the hypothesis of uniqueness of individual prints. Also, all reviews of fingerprints should be blind reviews, rather than allowing the reviewer to know the conclusion the first fingerprinting expert reached as is
50 51

Schmidt, supra note 5, at 56 Schwinghammer, supra note 4, at 286 52 Id.

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Jason Bentley

currently practiced. Although fingerprinting will most likely remain most useful in enforcement and never have the broad scientific base that DNA testing has, these improvements would better protect innocent suspects as well as the integrity of the justice system.53 The most crucial difference between DNA and fingerprinting is that DNA, though more accurate, reveals more intimate information about the individual and their family members than fingerprints. Collecting fingerprints in a data base is similar to collecting mug shots. As facial technology develops, police will be able to identify a person on a camera within minutes by matching a face to a mug shot data base. In both cases fingerprints and faces were used to identify a person who was at a location allegedly committing a crime. In both of these situations no other information was communicated other than the identification of the individual herself, and their location. However, DNA is different for two reasons: first, it potentially communicates more about the individual than just their identity and location, and second it provides a partial match for their siblings, as if the sibling themselves was arrested. Beyond communicating the identity of a person, DNA evidence also potentially contains intimate details about a persons life. The US Constitution puts the burden on the government to come up with a reason to need to gather and keep personal information and not the other way around. It is not left to the individual to show a harm created; civil libertarians dont need to prove that DNA testing could lead to a dystopian society because the burden is on the government to show why their interest is so essential that it overrides a persons right of privacy. That is why police have to get a search warrant before arresting a person or searching a house. In Maryland v. King, after the petitioner rattled off a bunch of stats regarding how successful the law was requiring DNA collection at arrest, Justice Scalia replied, Well, that's really good. I'll bet you, if you conducted a lot of unreasonable searches and seizures, you'd get more
53

Id. at 287-289

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Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

convictions, too.54 The government installing cameras in every home in America would also help prevent crime and catch criminals; however, it would violate the Fourth Amendment. Fingerprinting does not have this problem because it is more like having your portrait taken, and has no ties to personal, intimate details.55 But DNA allows those who posses it to peer into very sensitive information. Although dystopian scenarios arent likely it should not affect the courts attitude. They are not asked to assess if DNA evidence will cause a tyranny, but whether citizens would have a subjective and objective expectation of privacy in their DNA. This paper specifically asks if there is a higher expectation of privacy in DNA than fingerprints, and the answer is yes because fingerprints contain no medical information embedded in them, whereas, DNA, even junk DNA, potentially does. A second reason why individuals have a higher expectation in their DNA is because DNA can be used to investigate siblings. There are no similarities of fingerprints between siblings. However, when the police find a partial match in the databank they can reasonably assume that the sample belongs to a sibling. The partial match can be used as probable cause to obtain a warrant for a full sample. Ironically, it is currently standard policy that a complete match would also require a second sample from the suspect whose DNA was a perfect match to the crime scene sample, putting a never convicted sibling in the same situation as a convict. Once one member of a family has their DNA put in CODIS all members of the family even completely law abiding members of the familynow have at least part of their DNA in the system. Of course no person has the right to commit a crime and get away with it, but, individuals have a right to be guilty until presumed innocent. Part of the rights enjoyed by free citizens is the right to be left alone unless there is particularized suspicion. The police cannot just
54 55

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-207.pdf at 16-18 Preston, supra note 47, at 491

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Cyberlaw

Jason Bentley

enter a home without a warrant. They cant perform terry stops just to collect fingerprints to put in a large database because those people may commit crimes. Yet, when a family member is arrested, it is as if the police were allowed to go into the home and collect partial prints from everyone in the family, even though everyone in the family is not only innocent of any crime, but not even suspected for a crime. DNAs ability to raise probable cause of non-donated family members is a very serious side effect DNA has that fingerprints does not. CONCLUSION Ironically the strength of both DNA and fingerprinting is also the weakness of each technique. Fingerprinting is not as technologically advanced or precise as DNA testing. However, the biggest problem with DNA is that it may be too precise. To Justice Alitos question I would answer that although DNA testing can teach fingerprinting about having a more critical methodology which acknowledges its limitations, DNA testing will never be fingerprinting. Unlike fingerprinting it may someday be able to reveal private information, and even under the current regime siblings of an arrestee or convict have enough of their DNA in CODIS for law enforcement to track and issue a warrant for a full sample. This doesnt mean that DNA testing should not be pursued as a means of solving crimes, but that we recognize that DNA sampling is not fingerprinting, and that we make rules which allow law enforcement to solve crimes, while protecting the constitutional rights of both convicted and law abiding citizens.

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