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:
< Judge Bars Death Penalty in Moussaoui Case | Rush Limbaugh May Be Facing Drug Probe > |