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9th Cir. Invalidates Compelled DNA Databank Testing

More good news: The 9th Circuit rules for prisoner privacy over the FBI's DNA databank program:

A 3-year-old law that requires federal prisoners to give blood samples for the FBI's DNA database was declared unconstitutional Thursday by a federal appeals court.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that requiring the blood samples amounts to an illegal invasion of privacy because they are taken without legal suspicion that the convicts were involved in other crimes.

The San Francisco-based court, the first federal appeals court to address the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, said that is a violation of inmates' Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches.

Maybe now more of that $545 million earmarked for the backlog of DNA testing of unsolved crimes in the Bush-backed Debbie Smith Act can go to testing prisoners with innocence claims under the Innocence Protection portion of the new Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act introduced in Congress yesterday.

Update: What the Court held:

United States v Kincade (2003, CA9 Cal) 2003 US App Lexis ____, slip op. at 3:

"We decide, in this case of first impression, whether the forced extraction of blood from parolees pursuant to the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. § 14135a (the 'DNA Act' or the 'Act'), violates the Fourth Amendment. First, we must consider whether, under general Fourth Amendment principles, blood may be extracted from parolees without their consent, simply because of their status as parolees. We conclude that, as a matter of general Fourth Amendment law, forced blood extraction from parolees requires individualized suspicion.

Second, we must determine whether forced blood extraction under the DNA Act falls within the exception of the Supreme Court’s 'special needs' doctrine. We hold that, because the DNA Act primarily serves a law enforcement purpose, the compulsory collection of blood samples pursuant to the Act does not fall within the special needs exception. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court (1) upholding the Probation Department’s order requiring Thomas Kincade to submit to the extraction of blood for the purpose of providing a DNA sample, and (2) sentencing him to a term of imprisonment and increasing the period of his supervised release for his refusal to comply." (2-1 decision)

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