While the U.S. Supreme Court debates whether police should have the right to take DNA samples from all people arrested for crimes, Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, goes further. He says governments should take DNA from everyone as the best way to prevent wrongful convictions as well as to solve more crimes. You can read his Slate commentary here.
Blog Editor
Mark Godsey
Daniel P. & Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project | Email | ProfileContributing Editors
Justin Brooks
Professor, California Western School of Law; Director, California Innocence Project | Email
Cheah Wui Ling
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore Email | Profile
Daniel Ehighalua
Nigerian Barrister; Project Director, Innocence Project Nigeria Email
C Ronald Huff
Professor of Criminology, Law & Society and Sociology, University of California-Irvine Email | Profile
Phil Locke
Science and Technology Advisor, Ohio Innocence Project and Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic Email
Dr. Carole McCartney
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Leeds; Founder, University of Leeds Innocence Project | Email | Profile
Nancy Petro
Author and Advocate
Kana Sasakura
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Konan University; Visiting Scholar, University of Washington School of Law; Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW)
Dr. Robert Schehr
Professor, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Northern Arizona University; Executive Director, Arizona Innocence Project Email | Profile
Shiyuan Huang
Associate Professor, Shandong University Law School; Visiting Scholar, University of Cincinnati College of Law Email | Profile
Ulf Stridbeck
Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Norway
Martin Yant
Author and Private Investigator Email | Profile-
Reblogged this on The 201010 blog and commented:
This is interesting as in the UK the police automatically collect a DNA sample when someone is arrested.
What doesn’t seem to be garnering much discussion is how our DNA information may be used outside of criminal proceedings. The government could, very easily, determine to whom we are related, for instance. That may be information that we do not even know, and it could be damaging to many. “Luke, I am your father.”
Further, genetic diseases could be mapped. The end-result could be a compilation of “undesirables.” If two people are known to be carriers of fatal recessive genes, should they be allowed to marry or have children? Or, perhaps some should be sterilized at birth.
Honestly, I don’t think we are in much danger of that with today’s government, but what about the government 50 years from now? Or 150 years from now? I trust them even less.
Maybe accused individual’s should be given the option to have DNA sample’s taken upon their arrest. This way there wouldn’t be any violations of their constitutional rights. This way people who are INNOCENT would be set free and NOT put through a trial. It would ALSO stop innocent people from spending countless year’s in prison for crime’s that they did’nt commit.