“The advent of DNA technology is one of the most significant scientific advancements of our era.” —Kennedy, Justice 

Facts: In 2003, a man concealing his face and armed with a gun broke into a woman’s home in Salisbury, Maryland. He raped her. The police were unable to identify or apprehend the assailant but they did obtain from the victim a sample of the perpetrator’s DNA. In 2009, Alonzo King was arrested in Maryland and charged with first- and second-degree assault for menacing a group of people with a shotgun. As part of the booking procedure for serious offenses, a DNA sample was taken from King by applying cotton swab— known as a buccal swab—to the inside of his cheeks. His DNA was found to match the DNA taken from the Salisbury rape victim. King was tried and convicted of the 2003 rape. King alleged that the DNA taken when he was booked in 2009 violated the Fourth Amendment as an unreasonable search and seizure and could therefore not be used to convict him of the 2003 rape. The court of appeals of Maryland agreed and set the rape conviction aside. The U.S. Supreme Court granted review. 

Issue: Did Maryland’s collection of King’s DNA during the booking procedure in 2009 constitute an unreasonable search and seizure? 

Language of the U.S. Supreme Court: The advent of DNA technology is one of the most significant scientific advancements of our era. The utility of DNA identification in the criminal justice system is already undisputed. Law enforcement, the defense bar, and the courts have acknowledged DNA testing’s unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty. It can be agreed that using a buccal swab on the inner tissues of a person’s cheek in order to obtain DNA samples is a search. The Court concludes that DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of a routine booking procedure. When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they 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. 

Decision: The U.S. Supreme Court held that the taking of the DNA from King at the time of booking was a reasonable search and seizure and reversed the judgment of the court of appeals of Maryland. 

Ethics Questions: Why did King want his DNA kept out of his criminal trial for the 2003 rape charge? Should law enforcement and the courts rely on DNA evidence as much as they do?