← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · londo
Thread ID: 14752 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2004-08-19
2004-08-19 02:25 | User Profile
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. government can require certain criminals to submit to DNA testing after their release from prison, a divided U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday in a reversal of an opinion it issued last year.
In October, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law requiring people convicted of serious crimes to give blood for an FBI (news - web sites) databank was unconstitutional. That 2-1 decision sided with the plaintiffs's argument that such a requirement violated Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful searches and seizures.
An expanded panel of 11 judges overturned the opinion in a 6-5 decision on Wednesday.
"Compulsory DNA profiling of qualified federal offenders is reasonable under the totality of the circumstances," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), wrote for the majority.
"Therefore, we today realign ourselves with every other state and federal appellate court to have considered these issues -- squarely holding that the DNA Act satisfies the requirements of the Fourth Amendment."
[url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=2&u=/nm/20040818/ts_nm/crime_dna_dc] Read the rest here. [/url]