Family DNA Matching Risks Police Abuses

Earlier this year, I criticized a new law that allows police to take DNA samples from people they arrest for a felony, absent any criminal conviction. As the Denver Post summarized, "The bill was amended to allow police to take DNA tests upon arrest but for the sample not to be processed unless a person is charged. The sample will be destroyed if no charges are filed."

As I noted, the law will "encourage police and prosecutors to arrest and charge people just to get a look at their DNA."

Now that Denver police have advanced a program to match crime-scene DNA to samples on record, it is no longer a question of whether the law will be abused, but when.

Michael Roberts writes for Westword, "Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey... [has] been working with colleagues in the Denver Police Department's crime lab, among others, to prove the efficacy of a method able to connect DNA not in law-enforcement databases to samples from family members..."

Morrissey told Roberts, "We're running [a sample] against the DNA of somebody else whose sample we obtained legally."

Except that obtaining somebody else's DNA legally is now trivially easy. You just come up with some plausible complaint against a person and arrest him. Voila -- a legal DNA sample.

So let's say the police suspect Joe Blow of committing some crime, but they can't easily find Joe Blow. But they know where to find Sam Blow, Joe's brother. If only we could figure out if the DNA we found belongs to Joe! All we need to do is get a look at Sam's DNA. And if Sam isn't feeling so cooperative...

I do not doubt that taking DNA samples from everybody in the population would help solve more crimes. Hell, we could get a database going with every single person's fingerprint, DNA, eye scan, special markings, and so on. We could also install every newborn with a barcode and GPS tracker. Update: CNN also carried the story on the DNA tests. Defense attorney Stephen Mercer told CNN, "If they want to drive down the street and do no-knock searches of homes, they would catch bad guys. But at what cost to our society?"

Or, we could retain our liberties. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

November 25 update: "Panel: British police arrest people just for DNA samples." Coming soon to a Colorado city near you?

DNA Bill: AP Ignores AP Report

On May 19, the Associated Press reported:

A Longmont man charged in the 1975 stabbing deaths of a Grand Junction mother and her daughter has been ordered to submit fingerprints, DNA and other identifying information as part of the police investigation into the case.

Mesa County District Judge Brian Flynn issued the order Friday for 64-year-old Jerry Nemnich. The order was made public on Monday.

Two days later, the Associated Press claimed, "Gov. Bill Ritter has signed a bill that would require anyone arrested for a felony to submit a DNA sample. ... Under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA."

Apparently Associated Press writers neglect to read Associated Press news reports. It is obviously not the case that "under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA." Under previous law, a judge could order DNA samples. You know, under the "due process" provision of the apparently superfluous Bill of Rights.

To date, nobody has seriously addressed my concern that the new law -- which I called "Bill 1984" for its Orwellian implications -- will encourage police and prosecutors to arrest and charge people just to get a look at their DNA.

That has not stopped Colorado Republicans from crowing about the new police-state law. On May 21, Owen Loftus issued a media release calling it a "GOP Bill," sponsored by Republicans Steve King and Scott Tipton. (Ritter is a Democrat and the former District Attorney for Denver.)

And State Senator Josh Penry, a leading potential candidate for governor, said in a separate release, "This is a big victory for the good guys. We know this bill will catch murderers, serial rapists and sexual predators who attack children. This legislation also underscores how members of both parties can come together to make Colorado safer -- and violent criminals, more accountable."

But what about the accountability of the police and prosecution, Josh? What about our fundamental rights to security of person and due process? What about the presumption of innocence?

When the police need not respect people's basic rights as they go about their job, that is not a "victory for the good guys." Instead, it blurs the line between good guys and bad, and it perverts the purpose of government from protecting rights to violating them.

This is an unpleasant reminder as to why I am not a Republican.

Bill 1984 Advances

Colorado Senate Bill 241, which I've taken to calling "Bill 1984" because of its Orwellian implications, allows police to collect people's DNA based merely on arrest. The basic argument against the bill is that it creates a perverse incentive for police to arrest people on some pretext just to look at their DNA.

Nor does an amendment change the basic nature of the bill. The Denver Post reports that the bill "is on the way to Gov. Bill Ritter's desk after [it] was amended to allow police to take DNA tests upon arrest but for the sample not to be processed unless a person is charged. The sample will be destroyed if no charges are filed." All this does is extend the perverse incentive to charging somebody on some pretext, knowing full well the charges will be dismissed, just to look at the person's DNA.

Mike Krause and Joe Carr also loot at some of the funding injustices surrounding the bill.

Republican Scott Tipton said, "We did a good thing today. We helped protect that population out there called our daughters and our wives."

Well, Scott, I talked to my wife about this, and she wants no part of your fascistic police state.