DNA collection poses tough ethical questions for criminal law

(The Center Square) - Since the advent of DNA testing, law enforcement agencies have been able to prosecute crimes - and exonerate the wrongly convicted - with greater certainty than ever before. Though not perfect, genetic technology has brought justice to scores of violent crime victims and their families, and with them has come what the American Civil Liberties Union called a “Pandora’s box” of constitutional privacy issues. In the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case Maryland v. King, justices narrowly ruled that it was not a violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights to collect a DNA sample upon their arrest. In keeping with that ruling, 34 states and the federal government now have laws on the books authorizing DNA collection upon arrest for certain crimes.

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