Important!!! is this true?? Affects Oklahomans

[Dr. HK]

Is this real? It seems to be. mods please move if need be.

http://axiomamuse.wordpress.com/

link to Bill http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/c...TS/Senate/SB618 (2-27-13) (JOLLEY) FS FA1.PDF http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2013-14%20FLOOR%20AMENDMENTS/Senate/SB618%20%282-27-13%29%20%28JOLLEY%29%20FS%20FA1.PDF



SB618 by Sen. Clark Jolley and Rep. Leslie Osborn will be heard as early as today tomorrow in the OK Senate.

SB618 would require mandatory collection of your DNA following arrest for felony and even some misdemeanor offenses.

If there is a reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is connected to other crimes, law enforcement can get a warrant for the sample. Collecting and databanking of DNA on arrestees as a matter of course and not upon any particular suspicion of a connection to a specific crime, negates the principle of innocent until proven guilty which is the cornerstone of our justice system.

The original mandate of DNA databases – to record genetic markers from convicted offenders, on the dual theories that convicts are;

1) likely to reoffend

And

2) their diminished expectation of privacy legitimizes the search.

The expansion of circumstances from which DNA can be collected, analyzed and indexed to people arrested but not convicted of a crime goes well beyond the purpose and intent of creating a criminal DNA database

Please Contact your Senator and ask them to please VOTE NO! on SB618.

 

[Dr. HK]

anyone?!

 

[HMFIC]

Sorry, I was busy watching Gattaca

 

[onearmedman]

Link to text... Relevant text starts at page 26...
http://openstates.org/ok/bills/2013-2014/SB618/documents/OKD00012650/

 

[henschman]

Who can argue with being TOUGH ON CRIME?!?!?!?! Say those words and Oklahomans will support whatever you are doing. Oh and that whole innocent before prove guilty thing? You are a liberal weenie if you believe in crap like that.

 

[kriket1911]

Yeah there is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty. Your guilty until proven innocent especially in Oklahoma,here they try and throw the book at you even for petty thing's it's crazy.

 

[Dr. HK]

so do you all think this is real? It is scary taking DNA for misdemeanor offenses .

 

[donner]

It likely is. It's been an issue in other states for a while and was just heard by the supreme court on the 26th.

From the boston globe
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nat...ing-arrests/ALY3YxILFHJ8trLtFkRvZL/story.html

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday will try to balance the rights of Americans who have not been convicted of a major crime to keep their DNA out of the government’s hands against the rights of crime victims to see justice done.

If the court rules for Alonzo King of Maryland, more than 1 million DNA profiles that have been stored in a federal database for matching with future crime scene evidence may have to be purged, advocates say. Others will never be collected, leading some repeat offenders to go free.

Under consideration is a 2003 case in Salisbury, Md. A man wearing a hat and scarf and showing a gun had raped and robbed a 53-year-old woman in her home and then vanished into the night.

Almost six years later, King was arrested in a nearby county and charged with an unrelated assault. Taking advantage of a Maryland law that allowed DNA tests after felony arrests, police took a cheek swab of King’s DNA, which matched a sample from the 2003 Salisbury rape. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.

Related
More of Monday’s Supreme Court highlights

But a Maryland court said they had to let him go.

King was not convicted of the crime for which he was arrested and swabbed. Instead, he pled guilty to the lesser charge of misdemeanor assault, a crime for which Maryland cannot take DNA samples.

The lower courts said it violated King’s rights for the state to take his DNA based on an arrest alone.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a final decision before summer.

Victims rights advocates defend the DNA testing laws.

‘‘The early collection of DNA prevents crime,’’ said William C. Sammons of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. ‘‘Had the recidivists been identified early in their career through arrestee collection, they would not have been able to commit the bulk of their crimes.’’

But privacy activists see letting police use DNA information without a warrant or a conviction as another loss for American privacy, with Americans’ genetic information held by the government eventually being used for other purposes.

‘‘Regardless of what the government does with the DNA sample and the limits it places on the sample’s use, all the highly personal data in it is in the government’s possession and outside the individual’s control,’’ said Jennifer Lynch, lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court’s blessing. But 28 states and the federal government now also take samples from people who have been arrested for various crimes, long before their guilt or innocence has been proven.