SCt holds that analyzing a cheek swab of arestee’s DNA is a
legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment…..
(Taken from the syllabus prepared by the Reporter of Decisions)
Maryland v. King, No. 12–207
Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Maryland
No. 12–207
Argued February 26, 2013
Decided June 3, 2013
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.
Held: 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. Pp. 3–28.
(a) DNA testing may “significantly improve both the criminal justice system
and police investigative practices,” District Attorney’s Office for Third
Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 55, by making it“possible to
determine whether a biological tissue matches a suspect with near
certainty,” id., at 62. Maryland’s Act authorizes law enforcement
authorities to collect DNA samples from, as relevant here, persons charged
with violent crimes, including first-degree assault. A sample may not be
added to a database before an individual is arraigned, and it must be
destroyed if, e.g., he is not convicted. Only identity information may be
added to the database. Here, the officer collected a DNA sample using the
common “buccal swab” procedure, which is quick and painless, requires no
“surgical intrusio[n] beneath the skin,” Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753,
760, and poses no threat to the arrestee’s “health or safety,” id., at 763.
Respondent’s identification as the rapist resulted in part through the
operation of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which connects DNA
laboratories at the local, state, and national level, and which
standardizes the points of comparison, i.e., loci, used in DNA analysis.
Pp. 3–7.
(b) The framework for deciding the issue presented is well established.
Using a buccal swab inside a person’s cheek to obtain a DNA sample is a
search under the Fourth Amendment. And the fact that the intrusion is
negligible is of central relevance to determining whether the search is
reasonable, “the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a
governmental search,” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U. S. 646,
652. Because the need for a warrant is greatly diminished here, where the
arrestee was already in valid police custody for a serious offense
supported by probable cause, the search is analyzed by reference to
“reasonableness, not individualized suspicion,” Samson v. California, 547
U. S. 843, 855, n. 4, and reasonableness is determined by weighing “the
promotion of legitimate governmental interests” against “the degree to
which [the search] intrudes upon an individual’s privacy,” Wyoming v.
Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 300. Pp. 7–10.
(c) In this balance of reasonableness, great weight is given to both the
significant government interest at stake in the identification of arrestees
and DNA identification’s unmatched potential to serve that interest. Pp.
10–23.
(1)The Act serves a well-established, legitimate government interest:
the need of law enforcement officers in a safe and accurate way to process
and identify persons and possessions taken into custody. “[P]robable cause
provides legal justification for arresting a [suspect], and for a brief
period of detention to take the administrative steps incident to arrest,”
Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 113– 114; and the “validity of the search
of a person incident to a lawful arrest” is settled, United States v.
Robinson, 414 U. S. 218, 224. Individual suspicion is not necessary. The
“routine administrative procedure[s] at a police station house incident to
booking and jailing the suspect” have different origins and different
constitutional justifications than, say, the search of a place not incident
to arrest, Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U. S. 640, 643, which depends on the
“fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a
particular place,” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 238. And when probable
cause exists to remove an individual from the normal channels of society
and hold him in legal custody, DNA identification plays a critical role in
serving those interests. First, the government has an interest in properly
identifying “who has been arrested and who is being tried.” Hiibel v. Sixth
Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty., 542 U. S. 177, 191. Criminal
history is critical to officers who are processing a suspect for detention.
They already seek identity information through routine and accepted means:
comparing booking photographs to sketch artists’ depictions, showing
mugshots to potential witnesses, and comparing fingerprints against
electronic databases of known criminals and unsolved crimes. The only
difference between DNA analysis and fingerprint databases is the
unparalleled accuracy DNA provides. DNA is another metric of identification
used to connect the arrestee with his or her public persona, as reflected
in records of his or her actions that are available to the police. Second,
officers must ensure that the custody of an arrestee does not create
inordinate “risks for facility staff, for the existing detainee population,
and for a new detainee.” Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County
of Burlington, 566 U. S. ___, ___. DNA allows officers to know the type of
person being detained. Third, “the Government has a substantial interest in
ensuring that persons accused of crimes are available for trials.” Bell v.
Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 534. An arrestee may be more inclined to flee if he
thinks that continued contact with the criminal justice system may expose
another serious offense. Fourth, an arrestee’s past conduct is essential to
assessing the danger he poses to the public, which will inform a court’s
bail determination. Knowing that the defendant is wanted for a previous
violent crime based on DNA identification may be especially probative in
this regard. Finally, in the interests of justice, identifying an arrestee
as the perpetrator of some heinous crime may have the salutary effect of
freeing a person wrongfully imprisoned. Pp. 10–18.
(2) DNA identification is an important advance in the techniques long
used by law enforcement to serve legitimate police concerns. Police
routinely have used scientific advancements as standard procedures for
identifying arrestees. Fingerprinting, perhaps the most direct historical
analogue to DNA technology, has, from its advent, been viewed as a natural
part of “the administrative steps incident to arrest.” County of Riverside
v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 58. However, DNA identification is far
superior. The additional intrusion upon the arrestee’s privacy beyond that
associated with fingerprinting is not significant, and DNA identification
is markedly more accurate. It may not be as fast as fingerprinting, but
rapid fingerprint analysis is itself of recent vintage, and the question of
how long it takes to process identifying information goes to the efficacy
of the search for its purpose of prompt identification, not the
constitutionality of the search. Rapid technical advances are also reducing
DNA processing times. Pp. 18–23.
(d) The government interest is not outweighed by respondent’s privacy
interests. Pp. 23–28.
(1) By comparison to the substantial government interest and the
unique effectiveness of DNA identification, the intrusion of a cheek swab
to obtain a DNA sample is minimal. Reasonableness must be considered in the
context of an individual’s legitimate privacy expectations, which
necessarily diminish when he is taken into police custody. Bell, supra, at
557. Such searches thus differ from the so called special needs searches
of, e.g., otherwise law-abiding motorists at checkpoints. See Indianapolis
v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32. The reasonableness inquiry considers two other
circumstances in which particularized suspicion is not categorically
required: “diminished expectations of privacy [and a] minimal intrusion.”
Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326, 330. An invasive surgery may raise
privacy concerns weighty enough for the search to require a warrant,
notwithstanding the arrestee’s diminished privacy expectations, but a
buccal swab, which involves a brief and minimal intrusion with “virtually
no risk, trauma, or pain,” Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, 771,
does not increase the indignity already attendant to normal incidents of
arrest. Pp. 23–26.
(2) The processing of respondent’s DNA sample’s CODIS loci also did
not intrude on his privacy in a way that would make his DNA identification
unconstitutional. Those loci came from noncoding DNA parts that do not
reveal an arrestee’s genetic traits and are unlikely to reveal any private
medical information. Even if they could provide such information, they are
not in fact tested for that end. Finally, the Act provides statutory
protections to guard against such invasions of privacy. Pp. 26–28.
425 Md. 550, 42 A. 3d 549, reversed.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and THOMAS, BREYER, and ALITO, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.