January 4, 2005
TO GIVE OR NOT TO GIVE?
Welcome to 2005: No more pet tigers for New Yorkers; access to affordable health care for almost all of Maineís residents; and, among other things, an end to lawyers arguing about whether a fast-food restaurant is to blame for obesity, at least in Illinois and Missouri.
A number of states passed legislation in 2004, which led to new laws going into effect on January 1, 2005. The state of New York, for example, now requires skateboarders under the age of 14 to wear helmets, while teenagers in Illinois are no longer allowed to drop out of school at age 16; they now must stay enrolled until theyíre 17-years-of-age before dropping out. Here in Indiana, a new law now requires that at least one food handler in all restaurants be certified in food safety, while another law that went into effect on January 1st prohibits several commonly used predatory lending practices which previously left unsuspecting consumers up to their eyeballs in unmanageable debt.
It used to be that I could count on the laws that went into effect at the beginning of each year to be innocuous enough that I could easily laugh them off. But nowadays, with smoking bans and increases in minimum wages going into effect, January 1st gives many U.S. citizens reason to both celebrate and mourn.
Take my friend Lee McDaniel, for example. Longtime readers of my blog will recall Leeís nameÖ he was a frequent ëGuest Bloggerí on this site in 2003 and then again in the early part of 2004. Now serving time in a Missouri jail for leaving the scene of an accident which stemmed from a drunk driving incident, Lee, and all of Missouri's incarcerated felons, are now requiredóas of January 1, 2005óto provide DNA samples to the state before they are released from prison or while on probation or parole. Previously, only those convicted of violent felonies or sex offenses had to provide DNA.
Lee writes:
MikalÖ I am considering whether to join an injunctive lawsuit to delay or prevent DNA collection until the issue is settled in court. It seems to me that such DNA collection presumes that I am guilty of other major crimes, and that the State of Missouri is trying to force me to provide evidence without probable cause or a warrant. What do you think? Should I join the suit?
My reply to Lee (which I havenít sent yet):
LeeÖ My research suggests that DNA profiling makes good sense. Itís now required for convicted felons in some 30+ states, which had led to a number of ëcold caseí crimes having been solved because of its enforcement. In fact, in states that have all felons profiled, and where DNA is recovered from a crime scene that matched up with an identifiable person, eighty percent (80%) of the time that person was in prison on a felony conviction. Collecting DNA on all felons seems to have the ability to prevent crime. Itís a guilty person's worst nightmare, and the innocent person's best friend, because it is not biased and cannot be manipulated. Its mandatory collection seems to have revolutionized the way crime is investigated and prosecuted. My advice to youÖ consider the greater good that DNA profiling offers society. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to be fearful of. If youíre offended by the presumption that ëprofilingí creates, choose to look at it not as ëprofilingí but as prevention. For example, consider an investigation of a serial killer, which costs your state and local tax payers approximately $750,000.00. If DNA had been collected after a robbery conviction years earlier, the killer could have been identified after the first of 8 murders. Do you really want to stand on principle when the stakes are so high?
Back to his questionÖ what do you thinkÖ should Lee join the injunctive lawsuit to delay or prevent DNA collection?
Posted by Mikal at January 4, 2005 7:10 AM
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I have not followed DNA collection news; however, you have a good point. Lee's concern, however, is not without merit. Aren't felonies classified according to seriousness? Seems to me that some lesser classes of felonies may not warrant being subject to DNA collection. If the lawmakers in Missouri wrote a good law here, then DNA handover it is.
I agree with you, that all convicted felons should be required to give DNA samples. However, I am against the blanket collecting of DNA samples to solve a crime. In some towns when a rape happens, the police want to take DNA from all of the males in town, and I am against that practice. I think that they should only be able to do that if they have probable cause to get a court order for a specific suspect.
I'm afraid the argument of whether or not it is appropriate to collect DNA from the citizenry will be moot within a few decades. Since the inclusion of encoded fingerprints on the back of many state's driver's licenses has been a forgotten civil liberty cause, so to will the collection of DNA into massive governmental databases.
In the not so distant future, unlike with fingerprinting, government will not have to wait until a person is of driving age to collect fingerprints. Rather, since DNA does not change throughout a person's life, this data will be routinely collected at birth with hospitals forced to upload all DNA data to central databases either on the state or federal level under the guise of national security.
Moreover, Missouri and other states that incorporate this practice are sending a very valuable message to people both in and out of prison. It is in the best interest of the State to make people nervous and fearful in order to maintain control and dominance.
Regarding your first point Mikal, it is indeed a sad day on January 1 of each year. New laws, many good-intentioned but ultimately rediculous and frought with lobbied greed, have largely succeeded in making more criminals. In North Carolina, one new law requires any child under the age 8 or less than 80 lbs (increased from 5 and 40 lbs.) to placed in a car seat. Sounds good, right? Between 2000 and 2002, 43 children ages 5-8 were killed across North Carolina in motor vehicle crashes, according to the N.C. Center for Health Statistics. A very small albiet tragic number that should not warrant such a drastic change. Compare this to around 43,000 people killed each year in traffic crashes nationally.
So who benefits? Follow the money. The State collects millions of dollars in fines from "careless" soccer moms and the seat manufacturers increase their production twofold. Do you think that you will see the same car seats in schoolbuses? As a bonus it gives police more probable cause to stop and check you out to see what other infractions (read lucrative fines) they can come up with.
When we vote the same losers every election, we deserve the continued oppression we get.
Mikal writes:
"Now serving time in a Missouri jail for leaving the scene of an accident which stemmed from a drunk driving incident, Lee, and all of Missouri's incarcerated felons, are now required -- as of January 1, 2005 -- to provide DNA samples to the state before they are released from prison or while on probation or parole."
Yet Lee posted this on January 25, 2004.
"Even if you do all those things, you cannot vote if you have been convicted of a felony. I am one of those persons. I plead guilty to a felony "leaving the scene of an accident" charge stemming from an October 2001 driving accident. I completed a 4-month drug rehab program in the MO Department of Corrections and am on probation for about 4 more years."
Mikal, if Lee was on probation, did he do something else to break his probation and land him in prison?
To Dave's point, "When we vote the same losers every election, we deserve the continued oppression we get.", here's a thought...
ìNaturally, the common people donít want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and itís always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.î ñ Herman Goering, Hitlerís Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.
Generally speaking, I am a vocal supporter of civil liberties, so my first inclination is to say "hell no!" on the DNA collection matter for any and all convicted felons, but here is some food for thought: There are people sitting on death row that may have been sentenced to death by human judgement (subjective judgement at times) and they may have been convicted based on evidence other than DNA. If mandatory collection of DNA will prevent even one person on death row of wrongly being executed, I think an argument for this makes sense. We do not live in a black and white world. I don't know the laws well, so I am sure there are grave pros and cons to the mandatory DNA collection issue. This is one of several.
At first glance, I look at the law as being a great penalty, great enough to want to avoid it's enforcement...by being a good boy or girl and not finding yourself a felon. Then again, the capitol punishment doesn't really seem to deter killers.
To me, it just seems that whatever would deter people from committing violent crimes, would likely be the best for society as a whole. So, let's just restrict the DNA collection to those that have committed violent crimes, which may then lead to a reduced rate of recitivism. Control through fear still seems to be the modus operandi, but how else do you get criminal elements to play by the rules?
And, will DNA 'planting' become the new way of framing someone for a crime. How tough would it be to drop off some hair, dead skin or other damning genetic evidence at the scene of the crime in order to misdirect authorities and incriminate the innocent?
Hmm...more questions than answers for me on this post.
PS: Colorado just had our Left Lane Law go into effect. I'm VERY pleased with it.
Dave:
As a condition of his parole, Lee had to undergo frequent drug testing. One of his tests yielded a positive result for a controlled substance, which was found to be in violation of the conditions of his parole. The judge in his case had the option of extending Lee's parole, or sending him back to prison for the remainder of the term he was out on parole for. The judge decided back in May of last year that Lee needed to go back into jail, so that's where he'll most likely reside until July of 2006.
If anyone would like to correspond with Lee, leave a note in this comment area, and I'll provide you with his mailing address.
DNA sampling is a violation of our fourth amendment since it mandates search and seizure of an individuals dna without having any suspicion of crime. I am a convicted felon. My crime was working with a mortgage company who did fraud loans to help people get into houses they could not afford. I did not actually do the fraud but was aware of it which makes me guilty. I am a mother, a professional career woman now working with lenders to find and eliminate fraud. I do not believe I should have to give dna. If I had been convicted of a violent or sexual crime than I positively believe in giving dna. I will be fighting this all the way.
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