Supreme Court: To Swab or not to Swab..that no longer a Question

A narrowly divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can collect DNA from people arrested but not yet convicted of serious crimes, a tool that more than half the states already use to help crack unsolved crimes. 

The case, described by Justice Samuel Alito as "the most important criminal procedure case that this court has heard in decades," represented a classic test between modern crime-fighting technology and centuries-old privacy rights.

In the end, the justices had to balance the benefits and the intrusion of a simple cheek swab -- and the considerable benefits won out. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority's 5-4 decision, in which one liberal justice, Stephen Breyer, concurred. The key to the ruling, Kennedy said, is "reasonableness." 

"DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of a routine booking procedure," Kennedy said. "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."

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote an angry dissent for himself and three liberal justices, charging that the decision will lead to an increased use of DNA testing in violation of the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.

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