Opinion ID: 1462522
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fourth Amendment Unreasonable Search and Seizure

Text: During the last several years, the federal appellate courts have addressed a plethora of claims by prisoners, parolees, supervised releasees and probationers, challenging the constitutionality of federal and state laws that require them to submit to collection of DNA specimens for purposes of DNA profiling. Most of these challenges have been brought as claims for violations of the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Such Fourth Amendment challenges have been uniformly rejected by the courts, as the government's compelling interests in crime control have consistently been deemed to outweigh the plaintiffs' diminished privacy interests. Most recently, the Ninth Circuit rejected such a challenge to the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, as amended by the Justice for All Act. United States v. Kriesel, 508 F.3d 941 (9th. Cir. 2007). The Kriesel court noted that every circuit to consider a Fourth Amendment challenge to the federal DNA Act has upheld the Act. Id. at 946 (citing United States v. Weikert, 504 F.3d 1, 9 (1 st Cir.2007); Banks v. United States, 490 F.3d 1178, 1183 (10th Cir.2007); United States v. Amerson, 483 F.3d 73, 78 (2d Cir.2007); United States v. Hook, 471 F.3d 766, 772-74 (7th Cir.2006); United States v. Conley, 453 F.3d 674, 677-81 (6th Cir. 2006); United States v. Kraklio, 451 F.3d 922, 924 (8th Cir.2006); United States v. Castillo-Lagos, 147 Fed.Appx. 71 (11th Cir.2005)). In each of these cases, whether the court saw fit to apply the special needs test or, instead, the totality of the circumstances test, the result was the same. Because the government's compelling interests in crime control were deemed to outweigh the challenger's diminished privacy rights, the challenged search was held not to be unreasonable. [2] In Conley, the Sixth Circuit upheld the federal DNA Act under both tests. Moreover, Fourth Amendment challenges to parallel state DNA-indexing statutes have met with similar results. See e.g., Padgett v. Donald, 401 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir.2005) (Georgia statute); Green v. Berge, 354 F.3d 675 (7th Cir.2004) (Wisconsin statute); Shaffer v. Saffle, 148 F.3d 1180 (10th Cir.1998) (Oklahoma statute); Schlicher v. Peters, 103 F.3d 940 (10th Cir.1996) (Kansas statute); Boling v. Romer, 101 F.3d 1336 (10th Cir.1996) (Colorado statute); Jones v. Murray, 962 F.2d 302 (4th Cir.1992) (Virginia statute). Nonetheless, appellant Wilson maintains the district court erred in awarding judgment to the state defendants on his Count I Fourth Amendment claim.
Although the federal courts have reached uniform results, they have been divided regarding the most appropriate test to apply in scrutinizing a Fourth Amendment challenge to a DNA-indexing statute. Under the totality of the circumstances test, determining whether a search is reasonable requires assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests. Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 126 S.Ct. 2193, 2197, 165 L.Ed.2d 250 (2006) (quoting United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118-19, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001)); see also Conley, 453 F.3d at 679-80. In Samson, the Supreme Court applied the totality-of-the-circumstances test in evaluating and upholding a suspicionless search of a parolee. The Court expressly observed that application of the totality-of-the-circumstances test rendered examination of the search under the special needs test unnecessary. 126 S.Ct. at 2199. Under the special needs doctrine, the Supreme Court has recognized that a warrantless, suspicionless search may be justified when special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987). While a general interest in crime control does not suffice, some special law enforcement concerns may justify a minimal intrusion during information-seeking efforts where the concept of individualized suspicion has little role to play. Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 424-25, 124 S.Ct. 885, 157 L.Ed.2d 843 (2004). If a special need for the suspicionless search is identified, then the reasonableness of the search must be evaluated, balancing the gravity of the public interests, the degree to which the intrusion advances the public interests, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty. Id. at 426-27, 124 S.Ct. 885. The special-needs test is thus a more stringent test, adding a threshold step to the totality-of-the-circumstances test and requiring the court to first identify some special need beyond the normal need for law enforcement before undertaking a balancing of interests. Amerson, 483 F.3d at 79 n. 6. In the wake of the Samson ruling, in which the Supreme Court upheld a suspicionless search of a parolee without bothering to identify any special need, courts have viewed Samson as affirmatively signaling that the totality-of-the-circumstances test is the appropriate test for assessing the reasonableness of suspicionless DNA collection requirements as applied to parolees and supervised releasees. Kriesel, 508 F.3d at 946-47;. Weikert, 504 F.3d at 9; Banks, 490 F.3d at 1185. But see Amerson, 483 F.3d at 78-79 (holding the special-needs test remains the proper framework for analyzing the constitutionality of a DNA-indexing statute when applied to probationers, whose privacy interests are not as diminished as those of parolees); Hook, 471 F.3d at 772-73 (applying special-needs test to the claim of a supervised releasee without mentioning Samson ). Wilson urges the court to apply the special-needs test, as the district court did below, but contends that the district court. misapplied the test. [3] Wilson contends Samson should be narrowly construed as applying the totality-of-the-circumstances test in lieu of the special-needs test only under circumstances where a suspicionless search of a parolee is expressly authorized by parole agreement and by state law. The argument is expressly refuted by Samson itself. It is true that Samson's parole agreement included a search condition that the Supreme Court viewed as demonstrating that Samson had a significantly diminished expectation of privacy as a parolee. Yet, the Court expressly declined to rest its holding on a consent rationale, expressly declined to address whether the search condition was justified as a special need, and expressly anchored its holding in general Fourth Amendment reasonableness principles. Samson, 126 S.Ct. at 2199. Accordingly, we concludeconsistent with the conclusion reached by the Ninth Circuit in Kriesel, the First Circuit in Weikert, and the Tenth Circuit in Banksthat the Ohio DNA statute, as applied to Wilson, is properly evaluated under the totality-of-the-circumstances test. If, per Samson, the totality of the circumstances test affords sufficient assurance of the reasonableness of a suspicionless search of a parolee, who has less diminished privacy rights than a prisoner, then it clearly affords adequate protection to the rights of a prisoner. Wilson was a prisoner when corrections officials collected his DNA sample and when the district court evaluated the merits of his claim. Now, to the extent Wilson's Fourth Amendment claim may be considered to be premised on his slightly greater privacy interests as a parolee (challenging not the collection of the DNA sample, but the state's continued retention and potential abuse of both his DNA information and sample), Wilson's claim still falls squarely within the teaching of Samson. [4]
The totality-of-the-circumstances test requires the court to determine the reasonableness of the subject search based on a balancing of the state's interests against Wilson's privacy interests. In Conley, the Sixth Circuit undertook this interest-balancing exercise in connection with a Fourth Amendment challenge to the federal DNA Act by a supervised releasee. The court characterized the government's interests in establishing a nationwide DNA database as compelling. Conley, 453 F.3d at 680 (quoting with approval United States v. Sczubelek, 402 F.3d 175, 185 (3d Cir.2005)). The court identified several purposes served by the federal Act's DNA collection and indexing requirements: obtaining reliable proof of convicted felons' identities; promoting increased accuracy in the investigation and prosecution of crimes; deterring convicted felons from committing additional crimes, thereby protecting communities in which they are eventually released; and aiding in the solving of crimes by serving to exculpate the innocent and inculpate the guilty. Id. at 678-80. Considering the minimal intrusion implicated by the drawing of a blood sample, the court concluded that the government interests outweighed Conley's greatly diminished privacy interests as a convicted felon. Id. at 680-81. Wilson attempts to distinguish Conley by arguing that Ohio's interests in enacting the Ohio DNA statute should be judged by its legislative history, not by the purposes served by the federal DNA Act. He argues the legislative history demonstrates that the collection of DNA samples from convicted felons in Ohio was authorized to promote the administration of criminal justice and aid in deterring, preventing and solving crimes. Obviously, these purposes are substantially similar to those identified in Conley. Wilson does not argue that these interests are not compelling, but maintains they are ordinary law enforcement objectives that do not qualify as special needs. The argument is unavailing for two reasons. First, the governmental interests need not qualify as special needs under the totality-of-the-circumstances test, which, as indicated above, is properly applied in this case. Second, even courts that have applied the special-needs test have found that the very purposes identified both in Conley and in the cited legislative history are not ordinary, but special law enforcement concerns that do qualify as special needs. See e.g., Amerson, 483 F.3d at 81-83; Hook, 471 F.3d at 772-73. Further, Conley is not materially distinguishable on the basis of the extent of intrusion, as the swabbing of saliva to obtain a DNA sample is even less invasive than the drawing of a blood sample. Amerson, 483 F.3d at 84. Finally, Wilson's privacy interests, first as a prisoner and now as a parolee, are less substantial or certainly no greater than those asserted by Conley, a supervised releasee. Unable to distinguish Conley, Wilson argues that it is wrongly decided. Yet, his arguments are the same arguments that have been consistently and conclusively rejected by the overwhelming weight of authority. Hence, even if we were free to depart from the precedent established in Conley, we have been presented no persuasive reason to do so. Because the Ohio DNA statute appears to be materially indistinguishable from the federal DNA Act and other similar state statutes that have been uniformly upheld by the federal courts against Fourth Amendment challenge, we find no error in the district court's judgment in favor of the state defendants on Wilson's Count I claim.