Bill that prohibits warrantless DNA collection, like baby bloodspots, passes committee
NEW JERSEY – Law enforcement must obtain a warrant or court order to access newborn, crime victim or witness DNA samples under a bill released from the Assembly Judiciary Committee Thursday.
Subpoenaing testing programs for DNA samples is a way of skirting the process of obtaining a warrant, which requires presenting probable cause before a judge who can then approve or deny its issuance.
The bill (A3004), sponsored by Assemblyman Michael Inganamort, is in response to reports of such warrantless samples being used in unrelated criminal investigations.
“We want people brought to justice, but we need to keep intact the fundamental rights that make America the beacon of freedom it is,” Inganamort (R-Morris) said. “Our Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment, protects citizens against warrantless searches. While requiring a warrant, not a subpoena, might seem like an inconvenience, it is a fundamental protection against government overreach. We have to take the broader, longer view of these things.”
Under its newborn bloodspot screening program, New Jersey requires blood samples from newborns to test for more than 60 inherited disorders. Those samples are kept for two years; under Inganamort’s bill, parents or guardians must give consent to any use aside from medical disorder detection. Until recently, the state could use remaining blood samples however it wished without parents’ consent.
The state now also requires that its backlog of untested rape kits as well as the 1,400 kits collected each year be analyzed and those results kept for 20 years.
In one instance in New Jersey, law enforcement could not prove probable cause and obtain a warrant in an assault case from 1996. They instead subpoenaed the newborn screening laboratory for a blood sample, to gain evidence against the child’s father who was suspected in that case. That analysis was then used as probable cause to issue a warrant for the suspect’s DNA.
In another case in California, victim DNA from a rape kit was added to a crime lab database, connecting that woman to an unrelated burglary case. She was charged, but those charges were later dropped, with the district attorney citing Fourth Amendment violations.
“We might be dissuading people from the life-saving testing they need, or the justice they demand, if parents or victims and witnesses know their DNA is used in ways they didn’t consent to,” Inganamort said. “Sidestepping the protections guaranteed in the Constitution is a form of lawlessness. Two wrongs do not make a right.”
