Opinion ID: 3050565
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: kriesel’s privacy interest

Text: [5] In assessing the nature of Kriesel’s privacy interest, “we begin our resolution of the issue by taking note of the wellestablished principle that parolees and other conditional releasees are not entitled to the full panoply of rights and protections possessed by the general public.” Kincade, 379 F.3d at 833 (plurality opinion). Rather, the Supreme Court has often recognized, as it did yet again in Samson, that parolees “have severely diminished expectations of privacy, and that the Fourth Amendment does not necessarily prohibit a police officer from conducting a suspicionless search of a parolee. 126 S. Ct. at 2199, 2202; see also Kincade, 379 F.3d at 834 (plurality opinion) (“[C]onditional releasees enjoy severely constricted expectations of privacy relative to the general citizenry.”) [6] As a direct consequence of Kriesel’s status as a supervised releasee, he has a diminished expectation of privacy in his own identity specifically, and tracking his identity is the primary consequence of DNA collection. The DNA analyzed by the FBI consists primarily of “junk DNA”—“non-genic stretches of DNA not presently recognized as being responsible for trait coding” that were purposefully selected because 9 For Fourth Amendment purposes, our cases do not distinguish among parolees, probationers, and those on supervised release. Kincade, 379 F.3d at 817 n.2 (citing United States v. Harper, 928 F.2d 894, 896 n.1 (9th Cir. 1991)). 15312 UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL “they are not associated with any known physical or medical characteristics.” Kincade, 379 F.3d at 818 (plurality opinion) (internal quotation marks omitted). But see id. n.6 (“Recent studies have begun to question the notion that junk DNA does not contain useful genetic programming material.”). And, based on Kriesel’s status as a qualified offender on supervised release, he can claim only the most limited expectation of privacy, if any, in his identity given that he was lawfully convicted of a predicate offense. See id. at 842 n.3 (Gould, J., concurring) (noting that it is permissible to maintain identifying fingerprints of felons even after they have been released because fingerprints reveal only identity, but declining to endorse the practice of retaining DNA in the CODIS database after a felon has paid his debt to society). In assessing the nature of the privacy intrusion, we are mindful of the caution that DNA often reveals more than identity, and that with advances in technology, junk DNA may reveal far more extensive genetic information. Judge Gould observed in his concurrence in Kincade, “unlike fingerprints, DNA stores and reveals massive amounts of personal, private data about that individual, and the advance of science promises to make stored DNA only more revealing over time. Like DNA, a fingerprint identifies a person, but unlike DNA, a fingerprint says nothing about the person’s health, their propensity for particular disease, their race and gender characteristics, and perhaps even their propensity for certain conduct.” Id. n.3; see also Amerson, 483 F.3d at 85 (recognizing “the vast amount of sensitive information that can be mined from a person’s DNA and the very strong privacy interests that all individuals have in this information” (citing Kincade, 379 F.3d at 843 (Reinhardt, J., dissenting)). [7] The concerns about DNA samples being used beyond identification purposes are real and legitimate. Nevertheless, those concerns are mitigated by the Act’s privacy protections, which provide criminal penalties for the unauthorized use of DNA samples. They are also outweighed by the competing UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL 15313 notion that supervised releasees have little to no privacy interest in their identities. See 42 U.S.C. § 14135e(c) (“A person who knowingly discloses a [DNA] sample or result . . . in any manner to any person not authorized to receive it, or obtains or uses, without authorization, such sample or result, shall be fined not more than $250,000, or imprisoned for a period of not more than one year. Each instance of disclosure, obtaining, or use shall constitute a separate offense under this subsection.”).10 [8] The physical drawing of blood also implicates Kriesel’s interest in bodily integrity, “a cherished value of our society.” Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 772 (1966). A blood draw “is inherently more intrusive than a purely external search such as fingerprinting.” See Weikert, 2007 WL 2265660, at . Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has held that the intrusion caused by a blood test itself “is not significant, since such ‘tests are a 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. Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 625 (1989) (quoting Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 771). “[I]t is [also] a commonly accepted condition of probation [or supervised release] that the probationer [or releasee] submit to drug tests, with the result that, often, the requisite DNA sample can be collected without any incremental intrusion.” Amerson, 483 F.3d at 85. Consequently, the additional privacy implications of a blood test collecting DNA, as opposed to a cheek swab or other mechanism, do not significantly alter our analysis. Cf. id. at 84-85 (distinguishing between the physical taking of DNA samples and the “more serious invasion” of 10 “Should the uses to which ‘junk DNA’ can be put be shown in the future to be significantly greater than the record before us today suggests, a reconsideration of the reasonableness balance struck would be necessary,” even with respect to individuals in Kriesel’s exact position. Amerson, 483 F.3d at 85 n.13. 15314 UNITED STATES v. KRIESEL “analysis and maintenance” of an individual’s information). Based on all these considerations, we conclude that as a convicted felon who currently continues to serve his term of supervised release, Kriesel has a diminished privacy interest in the collection of his DNA for identification purposes. We emphasize that our ruling today does not cover DNA collection from arrestees or non-citizens detained in the custody of the United States, who are required to submit to DNA collection by the 2006 version of the DNA Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(1)(A) (2006). Nor do we have before us “a petitioner who has fully paid his or her debt to society, who has completely served his or her term, and who has left the penal system . . . . Once those previously on supervised release have wholly cleared their debt to society, the question may be raised, ‘Should the CODIS entry be erased?’ ” Kincade, 379 F.3d at 841 (Gould, J., concurring in the judgment). We do not answer these questions. See also Green, 354 F.3d at 67981 (Easterbrook, J., concurring) (noting that “[f]elons whose terms have expired” form a different category of individuals than supervised releasees for the purposes of a Fourth Amendment inquiry). Rather, our decision is confined to the precise circumstances before us.