DNA collection from arrestees starts Tuesday in North Carolina

[The Straight Story]

DNA collection from arrestees starts Tuesday in North Carolina


RALEIGH — Tuesday marks the first day of a new law that allows law enforcement to take DNA from arrestees, not just those convicted of a crime.

The new state law begins February 1 and requires officers to take DNA samples from anyone charged with assault on handicapped persons, stalking, or any felony.

Previously, samples were only obtained from convicted felons with blood. Now officers can swab the inside of someone's cheek to obtain DNA.

The samples will be sent to Raleigh for analysis and storage. They will be run against DNA taken from unsolved crimes to look for matches and stored to compare against evidence collected from crime scenes.

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110131/NEWS/110131037

[provis99]

1. screw the Fourth Amendment, I guess.

when will this fascist bullshit stop?

[customerserviceguy]

4. How is this fundamentally different

from taking fingerprints of arrestees? That's been going on for many decades.

[ixion]

2. bar coding is not far off

seriously...

[ejpoeta]

3. maybe they should just start taking dna samples at birth. already

do fingerprints if you get assistance.... will they do dna for that too?

[dsc]

5. given the boarderline criminal conduct of the NC state lab this is even more outrageous

I frankly wouldn't trust the NC lab for a second.

[nc4bo]

6. Was just about to post this plus an article concerning the NC SBI..

For those that don't know: http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=142189&catid=57

RALEIGH, NC -- Trial attorneys in North Carolina have identified more cases that they believe may have been adversely affected by policies at the state crime lab after a man who spent more than 16 years in prison was exonerated of a murder conviction that was based partly on incomplete lab test results.

The defense lawyers have turned over information about those cases to two former FBI assistant directors who were called in by state Attorney General Roy Cooper to review the lab.

The North Carolina Advocates for Justice, an association of about 4,000 trial attorneys, asked its members earlier this year to identify any cases that may have been adversely affected by the State Bureau of Investigation crime lab policies that led to the outside review.

"We're requesting cases where the attorneys thought there may have been some problems with the analysis at the SBI lab or the reporting," said Mike Klinkosum, a Raleigh attorney who is co-chairman of the group's task force on the lab.

More: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/08/19/635632/scathing-sbi-audit-says-230-cases.html

RALEIGH -- The North Carolina justice system shook Wednesday as an audit commissioned by Attorney General Roy Cooper revealed that the State Bureau of Investigation withheld or distorted evidence in more than 200 cases at the expense of potentially innocent men and women.

The full impact of the disclosure will reverberate for years to come as prosecutors and defense attorneys re-examine cases as much as two decades old to figure out whether these errors robbed defendants of justice. Some of the injustices can be addressed as attorneys bring old cases back to court. For others, it's too late: Three of the defendants in botched cases have been executed.

"This report is troubling," said Cooper, who oversees the SBI. "It describes a practice that should have been unacceptable then and is not acceptable now."

The revelation came after a five-month review in which two former FBI agents pulled dusty case files from shelves to find the truths that analysts chose to keep to themselves.

This is a very, very bad idea and I wish I were in a position to fight it.