Written by CD Sutton II   

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, recently made it legal to collect DNA samples from those arrested for major crimes...not charged with, not indicted for, not convicted of...simply arrested.
This is disturbing on several levels, not the least of which is that the ruling expands the powers of all law enforcement agencies throughout the country, agencies that have proven time and again that power is something with which they are not to be trusted.
I propose this scenario: You are arrested on suspicion of murder...not that you have actually committed murder, but simply suspected of the crime. The police can now collect your DNA and compare it with unidentified DNA found at other crime scenes. Bully for the cops if they find a match, right? But they have maybe hundreds of unclosed cases in their files, and are under pressure to close those cases, perhaps from an over-zealous DA or mayor. Plus, the police want to look good. What is to prevent them from dupli-cating your DNA in the lab and placing that 'evidence' anywhere they wish? Suddenly, they have 'found' your DNA in several unsolved homicides. End result? You are tried and convicted, not only for the crime you were arrested for, but for several other crimes you never committed. Everyone who has watched the myriad of TV crime shows that air daily knows that DNA is singular...like a fingerprint, or so the Supreme Court stated in their ruling.

But a fingerprint can't be duplicated in a lab.

This decision has set our system of justice on a slippery slope from which it will never recover.