E.D.Mich.: Government’s motion to compel fingerprinting of person in custody on indictment granted

The government’s motion to compel fingerprinting of a person in lawful custody on an indictment is granted. There is no Fifth or Fourth Amendment right involved. United States v. Adams, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51735 (E.D. Mich. April 15, 2014):

Regarding the second level of analysis, courts have determined that obtaining a person’s fingerprints does not constitute an intrusion upon his or her privacy so as to warrant Fourth Amendment protection. Accordingly, courts have consistently rejected the notion that obtaining fingerprints from a lawfully-detained individual is an unreasonable search and seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes. Dionisio, 410 U.S. at 4 (noting that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the compulsory collection of fingerprints from a suspect “only where [they] are obtained as a result of unlawful detention …”); Sechrist, 640 F.2d at 86 (holding that “[t]he taking of a person’s fingerprints simply does not entail a significant invasion of one’s privacy” to trigger Fourth Amendment protection.); U.S. v. Meza-Rodrigues, 2006 WL 2431398 at *1 (W.D. Mich. 2006), citing U.S. v. Pipito, 861 F.2d 1006, 1009 (7th Cir. 1987) (finding that the forced taking of defendant’s palm print was not a deprivation of his Fourth Amendment rights); Platte v. Otsego County Sheriff’s Dept., 2009 WL 1313260 at fn 6 (E.D. Mich. 2009) (Friedman, J.) (noting that “[m]erely taking fingerprints does not implicate the Fourth Amendment.”); Sanders, 477 F.2d at 113, quoting Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 727 (1969) (“while the seizure of the person is clearly subject to Fourth Amendment ‘reasonableness,’ the taking of physical evidence in the nature of fingerprinting, or as here palmprints, ‘involves none of the probing into an individual’s private life and thoughts that marks an interrogation or search.'”).

The collection of Defendant’s palm prints does not offend the Fourth Amendment as long as he is lawfully detained. Here, it is undisputed that Defendant is in lawful custody because he is being held pursuant to an indictment. Thus, the Court finds that it can compel Defendant to produce his palm print without offending his Fourth Amendment rights.

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