Opinion ID: 3050565
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: factual background and statutory framework

Text: In March of 1999, Kriesel was convicted of a non-violent drug offense, conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute. He was sentenced to thirty months imprisonment and placed on supervised release. After his release in February 2003, Kriesel failed three urinalyses, testing positive once for morphine and twice for marijuana. In light of his steady employment and established ties to the community, 1 I concur in Part III of the majority’s opinion and analysis of Kriesel’s APA challenge. For reasons explained below, however, that portion of the opinion merely holds that the Attorney General did not violate the APA’s procedural requirements in promulgating regulations to implement an unconstitutional statute. 15318 UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL however, the court nonetheless allowed Kriesel to remain on supervised release. Since early 2005, he has consistently passed drug and alcohol tests and has remained fully employed. No specific requirement that Kriesel submit to DNA testing was included in the terms of his release. It did include language that he must “follow the instructions of the probation officer” and that he “submit his person . . . to a search upon request by the U.S. Probation Office.” When requested by the probation officer to submit to DNA testing, he refused based on his objection on principle to invasion of his privacy interest without cause. This resulted in revocation of his probation, stayed, however, pending appeal. Non-violent drug offenders like Kriesel fall within a category of federal offenders that, according to governmentconducted studies, have one of the lowest rates of recidivism. U.S. Sentencing Commission, Measuring Recidivism: The Criminal History and Computation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines 13 (May 2004), available at http://www.ussc.gov/ research.htm (Commission Report) (drug trafficking offenders within the group of offenders that “are overall the least likely to recidivate”); U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Offenders Returning to Federal Prison, 1986-97 1, 3 (Sept. 2000) (persons convicted of drug offenses were the least likely to return to prison, with lower recidivism rate than property and public-order offenses). The government does not dispute the accuracy of these studies, nor did the government come forward with any contrary evidence to suggest that nonviolent drug offenders present a high risk of recidivism. The statute the court approves today is a revision, and significant extension, of the predecessor version of the 2000 DNA Act. Under the 2000 DNA Act, a limited number of crimes were categorized as a “qualifying . . . offense,” and only supervised releasees convicted of those qualifying offenses were required to submit to DNA sampling as a condition of their release. See DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act, Pub. L. No. 106-546, § 3, 114 Stat. 2726, 2729-30 UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL 15319 (2000) (hereinafter “2000 DNA Act”). The DNA obtained from those samples are placed within “CODIS,” the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. CODIS is a database that acts as a clearinghouse for DNA information taken from state and federal DNA collection programs, as well as crime scenes. The offenses enumerated in the 2000 DNA Act were primarily violent crimes and crimes related to illegal sexual activity. Id. The Justice for All Act in 2004, however, amended the DNA Act so that “any felony” now serves as a qualifying offense. Pub. L. No. 108-405, § 203(b), 118 Stat. 2260, 2270 (2004) (hereinafter “2004 DNA Act”). As before, that DNA is filed in the CODIS database. Notably, although the 2004 amendment brought the entire universe of non-violent federal felonies within the Act’s purview, the House Report that accompanied the amendment does not suggest that DNA evidence has any utility in solving non-violent crimes. See H.R. Rep. 108-711 (2004), reprinted in 2005 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2274. To the contrary, the clearest statement on this point is that, “When used to its full potential, DNA evidence will help solve and may even prevent some of the most serious violent crime.” 2005 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 2277 (emphasis added). In order to obtain his DNA, blood will be extracted from Kriesel while he is on supervised release, but the 2004 DNA Act contains no provision that requires the destruction or return of that biological sample (or the DNA analysis derived from it) once his period of supervised release ends. Indeed, the statute provides only for the destruction of the DNA analysis of a person included in CODIS in very limited circumstances. The burden to remove DNA from CODIS that was collected as a result of a conviction for a qualifying offense falls on the felon. Only by providing a “certified copy of a final court order establishing that such conviction has been overturned” will a person’s DNA analysis be expunged. 42 U.S.C. § 14132(d)(1)(A)(i). Thus, once Kriesel’s DNA is placed within CODIS, it will remain there permanently and 15320 UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL can be continually accessed and searched so long as the search is conducted by Federal, State or local “criminal justice agencies for law enforcement identification purposes. . . .” 42 U.S.C. § 14132(b)(3)(A). Simply put, once they have his DNA, police at any level of government with a general criminal investigative interest in Kriesel can tap into that DNA without any consent, suspicion, or warrant, long after his period of supervised release ends. Although it is easy enough to conceive of the hypothetical risks to civil liberties invited by approving this kind of regime, here, there is no need to speculate. The most recent version of the DNA Act permits extraction of DNA from “individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted [of qualifying felonies] or from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States.” 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(1)(A) (2006).2