Today, the United States Supreme Court narrowly upheld procedures used in Maryland to collect DNA evidence.

From the online news source SCOTUSblog:

Holding: When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold a suspect for a serious offense and bring him to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

Judgment: Reversed, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy on June 3, 2013. Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined.

For more detail and history of the Maryland v. King case, see the full SCOTUSblog webpage.

See previous Conduit Street coverage:

House Reaffirms DNA Practice
Maryland lawmakers Ask Supreme Court to Uphold DNA Law