{"id":8909,"date":"2013-06-19T10:40:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T10:28:54","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T10:28:54","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=8909","title":{"rendered":"Reason.com: John Paul Stevens vs. Elena Kagan on DNA Seizures and the Fourth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reason.com: <a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/19\/john-paul-stevens-vs-elena-kagan-on-dna\">John Paul Stevens vs. Elena Kagan on DNA Seizures and the Fourth Amendment<\/a> by<br \/>\nDamon W. Root:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In his dissent last week in the case of Maryland v. King, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the Fourth Amendment is violated when police take warrantless DNA samples from individuals arrested for serious crimes. \u201cMake no mistake about it,\u201d Scalia wrote. \u201cAs an entirely predictable consequence of today\u2019s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.\u201d As he concluded, \u201cI doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Among the justices who joined Scalia in this strongly-worded dissent was the Court\u2019s newest member, Elena Kagan, who replaced the retiring John Paul Stevens in 2010. In case you were wondering how Stevens might have voted in the case, he\u2019s happy to tell you. In a speech delivered last Friday before the liberal American Constitution Society, Stevens admitted that unlike Kagan, he would have sided with the majority in favor of allowing the DNA seizures. \u201cRules that unnecessarily preclude the use of such evidence may impede the search for truth without providing any meaningful protection for privacy interests,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cIn the Maryland case, for example, the only interest in privacy that was implicated was the defendant\u2019s interest in not being convicted of a serious crime that he in fact committed.\u201d Not exactly a robust endorsement of the Fourth Amendment\u2019s role in protecting the rights of criminal suspects.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fourthamendment.com\/blog\/\">Back to blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=8909\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}