• 12
  • March
    2012

Recently, Ohio lawmakers proposed a bill which would allow the government to take DNA samples from individuals arrested for felony offenses and keep the evidence on file for past and future investigations.

Ohio passed a bill in 2009 that allows the state to obtain DNA samples from individuals arrested on felony charges. The new bill would expand on this authority allowing law enforcement to collect DNA samples from individuals charged with a felony but never arrested, which would include individuals summoned to court instead of being held in jail. The bill would also allow the state to collect DNA from those arrested for a felony crime prior to July 1, 2011.

The new bill would also allow DNA to be collected from individuals arrested for felonies before they are convicted. Their DNA would then be sent to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to check against past records and kept on file to be stored and checked for any present or future unsolved crimes. If an individual's DNA matches crime evidence, he or she can be arrested and charged, even if there is no other evidence connecting that individual to the crime.

Opposition Arguments

Opponents of the bill feel that it violates privacy rights because it allows the state to obtain DNA from individuals who have been arrested or charged with a felony crime but have not been found guilty in court and does not allow those who have been arrested to defend themselves.

Opponents also voiced that the bill does not allow any opportunity for innocent individuals arrested of a felony or those wrongfully accused to remove their DNA from the state databases once it has been collected.

The new bill does specify that individuals who have had DNA taken from law enforcement but were never convicted of the felony crime the opportunity to petition a judge to seal their records and remove their sample from the DNA database. However, the requirements of removing DNA from the database are unknown and have not been specified under the proposed bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio strongly opposes this legislation and said that it "allows innocent people's genetic information to become property of the state without any due process."

The Department of Justice is also opposed to the bill and has told state legislators to avoid increasing DNA collections because it will only contribute to additional backlogs. The DNA database already holds 421,584 DNA records and over 10 million in the national database.

The Ohio Senate unanimously passed the bill and it now sits with the state House of Representatives.