Opinion ID: 2637645
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Remedy for Unlawful Collection of Genetic Material under the Act

Text: (2) Defendant contends the DNA test evidence admitted at trial should have been excluded because its collection was not authorized in 1999. Pursuant to article I, section 28, of the California Constitution, a trial court may exclude evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5 only if exclusion is mandated by the federal Constitution. ( People v. Banks (1993) 6 Cal.4th 926, 934 [25 Cal.Rptr.2d 524, 863 P.2d 769].) Our Constitution thus prohibits employing an exclusionary rule that is more expansive than that articulated by the United States Supreme Court. ( People v. Crittenden (1994) 9 Cal.4th 83, 129 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887].) For the reasons stated below, we conclude the nonconsensual extraction of defendant's blood for the March 2, 1999 sample, although a state statutory violation under the 1999 version of the Act, did not violate the Fourth Amendment. However, even assuming that the nonconsensual extraction of defendant's blood on March 2, 1999, did violate the Fourth Amendment, the law enforcement personnel errors that led to the mistaken collection of that March 2, 1999 blood sample would not have triggered the federal exclusionary rule. Accordingly, exclusion of the evidence obtained from that sample is not an available remedy for defendant. (3) Invasions of the body, including nonconsensual extractions of an incarcerated felon's blood for DNA profiling, are searches entitled to the protections of the Fourth Amendment. ( Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn. (1989) 489 U.S. 602, 616-617 [103 L.Ed.2d 639, 109 S.Ct. 1402].) As the text of the Fourth Amendment indicates, the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a governmental search is `reasonableness.' ( Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 515 U.S. 646, 652 [132 L.Ed.2d 564, 115 S.Ct. 2386].) Reasonableness ... is measured in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances ( Ohio v. Robinette (1996) 519 U.S. 33, 39 [136 L.Ed.2d 347, 117 S.Ct. 417]), and whether a particular search meets the reasonableness standard `is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.' ( Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, supra, 515 U.S. at pp. 652-653; see also Samson v. California (2006) 547 U.S. 843, 848 [165 L.Ed.2d 250, 126 S.Ct. 2193] ( Samson ).) The United States Supreme Court has explained that an intrusion caused by a blood test is not significant because such tests are `commonplace in these days of periodic physical examinations and experience with them teaches that the quantity of blood extracted is minimal, and that for most people the procedure involves virtually no risk, trauma, or pain.' ( Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., supra, 489 U.S. at p. 625.) Moreover, convicted criminals do not enjoy the same expectation of privacy that nonconvicts have ( People v. Adams (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 243, 258 [9 Cal.Rptr.3d 170]) with respect to their identities and their bodies. ( Hudson v. Palmer (1984) 468 U.S. 517, 530 [82 L.Ed.2d 393, 104 S.Ct. 3194]; Bell v. Wolfish (1979) 441 U.S. 520, 558 [60 L.Ed.2d 447, 99 S.Ct. 1861]; People v. King (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 1363, 1374-1375 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 220] ( King ).) That the gathering of DNA information requires the drawing of blood rather than inking and rolling a person's fingerprints does not elevate the intrusion upon the [defendant's] Fourth Amendment interests to a level beyond minimal. ( Rise v. Oregon (9th Cir. 1995) 59 F.3d 1556, 1560, fn. omitted; see also Nicholas v. Goord (2d Cir. 2005) 430 F.3d 652, 669 [In the prison context, where inmates are routinely subject to medical procedures, including blood draws, and where their expectation of bodily privacy, while intact, is diminished [citation], the intrusiveness of a blood draw is even further minimized. (fn. omitted)]; U.S. v. Kincade (9th Cir. 2004) 379 F.3d 813, 837 ( Kincade ).) Accordingly, courts repeatedly have upheld our state Act and the similar federal act, the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (Pub.L. No. 106-546 (Dec. 19, 2000) 114 Stat. 2726) for qualified offenders as a reasonable law enforcement tool for solving crimes. ( Kincade, supra, 379 F.3d at p. 836; see also People v. Adams, supra, 115 Cal.App.4th at pp. 255-259; Alfaro v. Terhune (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 492, 505 [120 Cal.Rptr.2d 197] ( Alfaro ).) (4) With regard to any privacy interest in identifying information, it is established that individuals in lawful custody cannot claim privacy in their identification. Though, like fingerprinting, collection of a DNA sample for purposes of identification implicates the Fourth Amendment, persons incarcerated after conviction retain no constitutional privacy interest against their correct identification. ( Groceman v. U.S. Dept. of Justice (5th Cir. 2004) 354 F.3d 411, 413-414.) In Kincade, the court explained that the DNA profile derived from the defendant's blood sample establishes only a record of the defendant's identityotherwise personal information in which the qualified offender can claim no right of privacy once lawfully convicted of a qualifying offense (indeed, once lawfully arrested and booked into state custody). For, as we recognized in Rise, `[o]nce a person is convicted of one of the felonies included as predicate offenses under [the Act], his identity has become a matter of state interest and he has lost any legitimate expectation of privacy in the identifying information derived from blood sampling.' 59 F.3d at 1560; see also Groceman [, supra, ] 354 F.3d at 413-[4]14; Jones [ v. Murray (4th Cir. 1992)] 962 F.2d [302,] 306-[3]07. ( Kincade, supra, 379 F.3d at p. 837, italics omitted.) (5) In response to challenges to the amendment that authorized collection in California from all adult felons, several state appellate courts have concluded that the extraction of biological samples from an adult felon is not an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. ( In re Calvin S. (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 443, 447 [58 Cal.Rptr.3d 559]; see also People v. Travis (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 1271, 1281-1290 [44 Cal.Rptr.3d 177]; People v. Johnson (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 1135, 1168 [43 Cal.Rptr.3d 587]; Alfaro, supra, 98 Cal.App.4th at pp. 505-506; King, supra, 82 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1371-1378.) We agree with our state appellate courts that the nonconsensual extraction of biological samples for identification purposes does implicate [federal] constitutional interests ( Alfaro, supra, 98 Cal.App.4th at p. 505), but that such nonconsensual extraction of biological samples from adult felons is reasonable because those convicted of serious crimes have a diminished expectation of privacy and the intrusions authorized by the Act are minimal while the Act serves compelling governmental interests, including `the overwhelming public interest in prosecuting crimes accurately. ' [Citation.] A minimally intrusive methodology that can serve to avoid erroneous convictions and to bring to light and rectify erroneous convictions that have occurred manifestly serves a compelling public interest. ( Id. at pp. 505-506; see also In re Calvin S., supra, 150 Cal.App.4th at p. 449 [nonconsensual extraction of biological samples from juveniles conducted pursuant to § 296 is not unreasonable within the meaning of the 4th Amend.].) [18] (6) The fact that defendant Robinson's blood was collected in violation of our state law at the time does not alter our Fourth Amendment analysis. That law was more restrictive than the Fourth Amendment and, for Fourth Amendment purposes, it is not dispositive that a search and seizure was not permissible under state law. The United States Supreme Court has held that, as far as the federal Constitution is concerned, whether state law authorized the search [is] irrelevant. ( Virginia v. Moore (2008) 553 U.S. 164, ___ [170 L.Ed.2d 559, 128 S.Ct. 1598] ( Moore ); accord, Whren v. United States (1996) 517 U.S. 806 [135 L.Ed.2d 89, 116 S.Ct. 1769]; California v. Greenwood (1988) 486 U.S. 35, 43-44 [100 L.Ed.2d 30, 108 S.Ct. 1625]; Cooper v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 58 [17 L.Ed.2d 730, 87 S.Ct. 788].) The Supreme Court explained that the 4th Amen. is not historically understood as a redundant guarantee of whatever limits on search and seizure legislatures might have enacted ( Moore, supra, 553 U.S. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1602]), and that its meaning does not change with local law enforcement practices, which `vary from place to place and from time to time.' ( Id. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1605].) While states remain free `to impose higher standards on searches and seizures than required by the federal Constitution' ( id. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1604]), a state's choice of a more restrictive option does not render the less restrictive ones unreasonable, and hence unconstitutional ( id. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1606]). With regard to the issue presented in Moore, the court held that warrantless arrests for crimes committed in the presence of an arresting officer are reasonable under the Constitution, and that while States are free to regulate such arrests however they desire, state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment's protections. ( Id. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1607]; see also Samson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 855 [holding the 4th Amend. does not prohibit a police officer from conducting a search of a parolee without any suspicion of that parolee while finding of little relevance the fact that some states and the federal government require a level of individualized suspicion before searching a parolee].) (7) The reasoning in Moore and Samson applies here, where virtually every court to consider the constitutionality of a DNA statute has upheld it against a Fourth Amendment challenge, but the list of qualifying or predicate offenses has varied from state to state over time. ( Moore, supra, 553 U.S. at p. ___ [128 S.Ct. at p. 1605].) For example, Virginia collected DNA under its statute from all felons as early as 1990. ( Jones v. Murray (4th Cir. 1992) 962 F.2d 302, 304.) Wisconsin allowed collection for a limited number of offenses in 1993, but amended its statute in 1999 to require collection from all felons. ( Green v. Berge (7th Cir. 2004) 354 F.3d 675, 676.) Significantly, our state statute's initially restricted list of qualifying offenses was regularly expanded and now authorizes the nonconsensual extraction of biological samples from all adult felons. (Current § 296, subd. (a)(1).) These interstate statutory differences do not control the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which does not depend on the differing and evolving DNA collection laws of particular states at particular times. Instead, the question remains the same, namely, whether, under all the circumstances, the nonconsensual collection of DNA from a convicted felon is reasonable as `judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.' ( Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, supra, 515 U.S. at pp. 652-653.) We agree with those courts that have answered that question in the affirmative. [19] Having decided that a lawfully convicted and incarcerated felon, such as defendant, does not have a Fourth Amendment right to prevent state authorities from collecting a blood sample for DNA profiling, we conclude that the March 2, 1999 blood sample and the DNA test evidence obtained as a result of that sample were properly admitted into evidence at defendant's trial. However, even assuming, without deciding, that the state statutory violation that led to the nonconsensual extraction of defendant's blood for the March 2, 1999 blood sample constituted a Fourth Amendment violation, application of the federal exclusionary rule would not be appropriate for such a violation. (See Hudson v. Michigan (2006) 547 U.S. 586, 590, 602 [165 L.Ed.2d 56, 126 S.Ct. 2159] ( Hudson ) [statutory knock-and-announce violation does not necessarily trigger the exclusionary rule].) [20] (8) The exclusionary rule applies only where its deterrence benefits outweigh its `substantial social costs.' ( Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott (1998) 524 U.S. 357, 363 [141 L.Ed.2d 344, 118 S.Ct. 2014], quoting United States v. Leon (1984) 468 U.S. 897, 907 [82 L.Ed.2d 677, 104 S.Ct. 3405]; accord, Arizona v. Evans (1995) 514 U.S. 1, 13 [131 L.Ed.2d 34, 115 S.Ct. 1185]; see also People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 755-756 [80 Cal.Rptr.2d 734, 968 P.2d 445].) The United States Supreme Court has cautioned that [s]uppression of evidence ... has always been our last resort. ( Hudson, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 591.) In Hudson, the court emphasized that the exclusionary rule's `costly toll' upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging [its] application. ( Ibid. ) In Herring v. United States (2009) 555 U.S. ___ [172 L.Ed.2d 496, 129 S.Ct. 695] ( Herring ), the United State Supreme Court explained that [t]o trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. As laid out in our cases, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence. ( Id. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 702].) The facts in Herring involved an officer who reasonably, but mistakenly, believed there was an outstanding warrant for Herring. When Herring appeared at the sheriff's department to get something from his impounded truck, investigator Anderson recognized him and asked a county clerk to check for outstanding warrants for Herring's arrest. When none were found, Anderson asked the clerk to check with her counterpart in a neighboring county. That clerk replied that there was an active arrest warrant for Herring's failure to appear on a felony charge. Because of a negligent bookkeeping error by another law enforcement employee, the fact that the warrant had been recalled had not been entered in the database. The incorrect information was relayed to Anderson, who, along with a sheriff's deputy, followed Herring from the impound lot and arrested him. During a search incident to the arrest, methamphetamine was found in Herring's pocket, and a pistol was found in his vehicle. ( Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 699].) In agreeing with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that the challenged evidence was admissible, the Supreme Court stated, In light of our repeated holdings that the deterrent effect of suppression must be substantial and outweigh any harm to the justice system, e.g., [ United States v. ] Leon, [ supra , ]468 U. S., at 909-910, we conclude that when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, any marginal deterrence does not `pay its way.' Id., at 907-908, n. 6 (internal quotations marks omitted). In such a case, the criminal should not `go free because the constable has blundered.' People v. Defore, 242 N. Y. 13, 21, 150 N. E. 585, 587 (1926) (opinion of the Court by Cardozo, J.). ( Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 704].) The parties before us agree the violations of the Act in defendant's case were unintentional mistakes made during the early implementation of the Act. The People characterize those mistakes as non-deliberate, non-flagrant, and non-systemic; in other words, as `non-culpable negligence, at most.' On the other hand, defendant contends the mistaken collection of the March 2, 1999 blood sample was the result of a cascading series of errors that were indicative of a systemic breakdown, the order to draw blood was not attenuated from its seizure from defendant, and the search in Herring was limited to the suspect's clothes and vehicle, whereas the seizure here occurred from [defendant's] very body. We first note that nothing in Herring supports defendant's suggestion that whether or not the exclusionary rule is triggered in a particular case should depend upon whether an error results in a seizure of evidence from a suspect's body rather than from the suspect's `person.' We reject defendant's claim that the seizure of biological material from [his] very body affects the determination of whether the police conduct here was more culpable or reckless than mere negligence. We next note that the Supreme Court's general holding regarding what conduct triggers the exclusionary rule does not focus on the issue of attenuation, and we find that issue has no relevance to our analysis in this particular case. ( Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 702].) Instead, the high court requires us to focus on whether the facts presented warrant application of the exclusionary rule to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or ... recurring or systemic negligence. ( Id. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 702].) As in Herring, we find that [t]he error in this case does not rise to that level. ( Id. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 702].) On appeal, we uphold any express or implied factual findings of the trial court that are supported by substantial evidence. ( People v. Williams (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1268, 1301 [248 Cal.Rptr. 834, 756 P.2d 221].) Here, in ruling the March 2, 1999 blood sample and DNA test evidence were admissible, the trial court found that the mistakes that led to the unlawful collection of defendant's blood were made because correctional staff was under pressure to immediately implement a newly enacted law that was complex and confusing, that the motivation for the collection of the March 2, 1999 blood sample was a good faith belief, possibly based on a negligent analysis by someone, that the defendant was a qualified offender and that the law directed his sample to be obtained. The trial court also found that, while the Department did not act in a perfect manner, it acted in a responsible and conscientious manner in trying to keep [its] errors to a very low level. The following evidence presented at the motion to suppress supports the trial court's findings that the errors in this case were negligent rather than deliberate, reckless, or systemic. The director of the Department's Bureau of Forensic Services Toxicology Laboratory (the Director) testified that he worked full time on implementation of the Act as of December 1998. In the early months of that assignment, he reviewed the legislation, consulted the Attorney General, and developed materials that he delivered to various locations. He later created a specific information bulletin that was distributed to approximately 600 law enforcement agencies throughout the state. The Director quickly worked to disseminate information about the Act because the Department had to inform law enforcement agencies what they needed to do to be able to provide us with the new samples. His typical presentations included information regarding what were qualifying offenses. He also discussed how they would decide what the process was to be able to find out whether they were qualifying offenses. In that regard, the Director advised law enforcement personnel to use the Department's automated criminal history system to pull up the rap sheet in order to determine whether an individual in custody had a qualifying felony offense and how to distinguish whether wobblers were misdemeanor or felony offenses. The Director gave at least 36 presentations throughout California during 1999; during those training sessions, law enforcement personnel occasionally expressed confusion in terms of how to implement the Act because []it was a very difficult law to understand. The first training session in the Sacramento area was in April 1999. The first information bulletin, including an attachment that delineated qualifying offenses and detailed that individuals needed to be convicted rather than adjudicated to qualify, was sent out in July 1999. In his testimony, the Director explained that the Act expanded the number of offenses that qualified for DNA analysis, [21] that, upon implementation of the Act, the Department was serious about only allowing qualifying offenses or qualifying offenders into the databank, and that law enforcement was advised to request a record of disposition from the courts whenever an ambiguity arose as to whether the prisoner had a qualifying offense. The Director further testified that he did not personally train DNA databank employees on qualifying samples for inclusion in the databank, but that he was aware the databank provided in-house training under the direction of Kenneth Konzak, the criminalist manager of California's DNA databank laboratory. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Konzak testified that he helped establish the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which is software that compares qualifying offender samples to profiles collected at a crime scene. Testifying as an expert, Konzak noted that, as to all state and federal government databanks, for offenders there's a qualifying requirement... for a conviction or adjudication of some kind. Konzak explained that California's DNA databank employees were trained regarding who are qualifying offenders by on-the-job training and in training sessions. He admitted the Act initially was administratively very complicated; because it greatly expanded the number of qualifying offenders, it required the rapid hiring of many new analysts, and the implementation process required the DNA databank laboratory to call in to our legal unit almost every day about some issue or another. He refuted any suggestion that the Department had a systemic or deliberate policy of entering nonqualifying profiles into its database by noting that the draconian sanction for such a policy could be expulsion from the national crime solving index and removal of the CODIS software from a noncompliant laboratory. Konzak noted that, although in 1999 and 2000 there was no statutory requirement for the DNA laboratory to confirm that an individual had been appropriately identified as a qualifying offender, [22] the laboratory did so in an attempt to do the best we could to follow the statute. To confirm the presence of a qualifying offense, laboratory employees used an automated criminal history system, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS), to track the criminal history (rap sheet) associated with an offender's fingerprints and his or her CII (criminal identification index) number. Finally, Konzak testified that in June 1999, the lab manager stopped all searches of the database to verify tens of thousands of offender profiles after discovering, in an unrelated case similar to the one before us now, that a profiled offender who had been thought to have a qualifying offense actually had been convicted only of misdemeanor spousal abuse (§ 273.5). Deputy Sheriff Lawrence Ortiz testified that in February 1999 he was trained regarding how to identify and collect DNA samples pursuant to the recently passed Act from individuals at the Center who had been convicted of sex and violent offenses. He then began training the Center's civilian records officers on how to identify qualified offenders. Ortiz testified that the staff was alerted about the system's capabilities to look for qualifying offenses, that only certain felony offenses constituted qualifying offenses, and that the system and CLETS read[] out felony or misdemeanor depending on the severity of the conviction. He said staff early on exhibited confusion about what constituted a qualifying offense, and that even in 2003, the year he testified, there's an occasional question as to [the] qualifications. Ortiz said he and the staff would err on the side of caution and treat juvenile adjudications as nonqualifying offenses if they resulted in a juvenile hall disposition only. He noted that early implementation of the Act at the Center resulted in [b]orderline chaos because he and his large staff were under pressure to quickly identify offenders and complete the collection kits provided by the Department. At the time defendant's blood was collected, approximately 16 records officers were working in four shifts day and night to determine whether inmates at the Center had qualifying offenses. Ortiz relied on his staff's indication that there was a qualifying offense without verifying that assessment because he lacked the time to personally validate each determination. However, whenever an inmate indicated he did not believe he was a qualified offender, Ortiz would research the issue himself. Ortiz conceded that, in March of 1999, if a rap sheet indicated that a person had a [section] 245 as a juvenile, sent to juvenile hall, he might possibly have mistakenly collected a DNA blood sample from that individual. At the time defendant's March 2, 1999 blood sample was collected, Ortiz believed defendant did in fact have a qualifying offense. He believed everybody on his staff knew the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony [section] 273.5 and that the employee who qualified defendant's section 273.5 offense therefore must have believed it was a felony conviction. We agree with the trial court that, although errors were made during the early implementation of the Act, law enforcement employees conscientiously tried to follow its requirements for collection of biological samples and inclusion of those samples in the state databank, including conscientiously trying to make accurate determinations regarding whether an individual had a qualifying offense under former section 296. The trial court's finding that law enforcement tried to keep errors at a low level is supported by the training implemented in response to the Act and the fact that the Department's laboratory initiated its own nonstatutory verification process to confirm a prisoner's qualified offender status after the qualification determination that resulted in collection of a biological sample. Here, as in Herring, we hold that the challenged errors do not, by themselves, require the `extreme sanction of exclusion.' ( Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at p. ___ [129 S.Ct. at p. 700].) We agree with the trial court that the law enforcement personnel errors in this case were the result of negligence, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, that the unlawful collection of genetic material under the Act was not sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and that the law enforcement personnel were not sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. ( Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at pp. ___, ___ [129 S.Ct. at pp. 704, 702].) [23] We have analyzed the nonconsensual extraction of defendant's blood for the March 2, 1999 blood sample as a state statutory violation that did not violate the Fourth Amendment, and, alternatively, as an assumed federal constitutional violation. In either case, we agree with the Court of Appeal that the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to suppress the [blood and DNA test] evidence in this case.