Law Enforcement Officials Press Attorney General on DNA Provision
Several law enforcement agencies are hoping Attorney General Doug Gansler will take the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Montgomery County law enforcement officials are urging Attorney General Doug Gansler to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision that would deny police from taking DNA from defendants arrested for crimes of violence and burglary.
In a 5-2 decision, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned a home invasion rape conviction in the case of Alonzo King v. State of Maryland. The court's decision Tuesday reversed the 2009 provision officials said helped them solve open investigations, according to a joint release from the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Montgomery County Police Department and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
Montgomery County Department of Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said in a press release Wednesday that DNA hits allow for police to arrest repeat offenders.
The ruling will enable a convicted rapist to go free, Montgomery County Sheriff Darren Popkin said in the release, adding that the same arguments used Tuesday were made against taking fingerprints almost a century ago.
The provision to allow police to collect DNA was enacted in 2009 and since then there have been 190 DNA samples taken upon arrest statewide and 23 DNA samples taken during arrests in Montgomery County. All led to convictions, the release stated.
Joe Thomas
2:51 pm on Friday, April 27, 2012
What a stupid decision. Why didn't they just go ahead and include mug shots and fingerprints?
B Allen
8:16 am on Saturday, April 28, 2012
This is a NO BRAINER. We have the technology, it is 99.99999 to 100% correct in identifying a criminal, should they have the results in the database, WHY NOT USE IT. Oh wait, the left wants to give criminals MORE rights than the victims here in Maryland. If it is a means to get the bad guys off the street, locked up or in some cases put to death for the worst offenders, then so be it. DAN can be looked at as a clue left at the scene of the crime, just as if they dropped their wallet at the scene with all their ID in it. No need to get Gansler involved, he is for the criminal anyway. He feels the victims need to prove their claims.
Cheryl
9:52 am on Sunday, April 29, 2012
Something is at work here. I think we're in an alternate universe. I think a comic book villain has taken over the world and we're actually now living sometime in 18th, 19th, hell - maybe 17th century. Somebody wake me up quick before I'm STUCK HERE!