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Court: Police don't normally need a warrant for DNA testing on somebody's shirt
By adamg on Wed, 03/04/2015 - 3:41pm
The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld an Everett resident's assault and battery conviction that was based in part on a DNA test that showed the blood on his sweatshirt belonged to the man he stabbed.
Manuel Arzola sought to overturn the conviction on the grounds the DNA test was the equivalent of a police search requiring a warrant, which police in Chelsea didn't get after arresting him.
In a unanimous ruling, the state's highest court said: Nope, because the bloodstained shirt was lawfully seized by police when Arzola was booked and because the type of DNA testing done was limited to the points, or loci, on a person's DNA that were enough to establish possible identify, but not the person's medical or ancestry information:
Apart from the source's sex, the DNA analysis of the unknown sample taken from the defendant's lawfully seized shirt revealed nothing more than the identity of the source, which is what an analysis of latent fingerprints would have revealed (albeit with less accuracy) had they been found on the clothing. Therefore, the DNA analysis was no more a search than an analysis of latent fingerprints would be.
The court also said:
A defendant generally has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shirt he or she is wearing, but where, as here, the shirt is lawfully seized, a defendant has no reasonable expectation of privacy that would prevent the analysis of that shirt to determine whether blood found on it belonged to the victim or to the defendant.
The court added it might have to revisit the issue of requiring a warrant if scientific advances did make it possible to use the specific loci to garner more information about the person the DNA came from.
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| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. Manuel Arzola | 165.73 KB |
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Comments
So, is the MA SJC just
So, is the MA SJC just illiterate, or what? Yesterday they didn't actually read the Heller decision, today they missed all the popular press articles that came out last week about "DNA phenotyping," which allows you to get not just medical and ancestry information, but a guess at what the face looks like as well:
Can you at least read the decision?
The DNA testing in question involves 16 specific and highly variable points in a DNA sample - the court specifically said it was not referring to the kind of DNA testing that could reveal that additional information.
Ah, so it's just you that was
Ah, so it's just you that was unaware that those "scientific advances" are already in the past. Noted.
OK, can you educate me, then?
I'd be grateful if you could provide some links to reports that would debunk today's SJC decision.
Way to jump all over people
Way to jump all over people for *your* inaccurate summary adam.
Please don't stop there
Could you list what's inaccurate about my summary of the decision?
Your inaccurate summary
Your inaccurate summary (emphasis mine):
Actual Court Decision:
Looks like you munged the ideas in your head. The current decision refers to a previous decision where such advances might be in the future. They're here right now, as the court is aware, and you apparently are not.
See this link for a lab that already offers the service to police:
http://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/
I am not
I am not a lawyer, nor am I a DNA researching person. In other words, I think Adam pretty much got it right, especially for the money we pay him to do things here. Either way, it seems the court left the door open for the government to be estopped from using the DNA in more than a 'I have a fingerprint' kind of way.
What's Wrong?
Adam's summary at the top of your post is an accurate recap of the SJC's paragraph below. The SJC decision is consistent with the SCOTUS ruling that the loci used for law enforcement DNA profiling can show identity and sex, and that's it.
Anon, I have some peripheral
Anon, I have some peripheral involvement in this case, and Arzola, King and the rest rely on the fact that the 16 loci at issue here are junk DNA, and are used solely for identification. Phenotyping likely requires analysis of many more loci. They're not saying more advanced analysis CANNOT be done, they're saying it WASN'T done in this case -- he was nabbed by matching those 16 loci from the blood stain to a buccal swab. If, in the future, it IS done, then the SJC will have to confront the privacy implications there. In this case, doing so would have been jumping the gun.
The SJC's opinion carefully addressed the privacy issues raised in the ACLU's amicus brief, and I'm impressed with their careful reasoning. Unlike SCOTUS in King, the language was carefully narrowed to ensure they can revisit when new technology comes into use and that use is appealed.