A Risk-Filled Use of DNA

At first glance, Proposition 69 seems an easy call: The measure, as its backers argue, would probably help solve more cold crimes by rapidly expanding the state’s existing criminal DNA database. But the measure is so broadly written that each year it would turn thousands of people not found guilty of a crime into perpetual suspects.

Proposition 69 is a good example of the problems of lawmaking by initiative. If California’s DNA database needs expanding, the Legislature should do it, using appropriate safeguards to protect individuals not convicted of a crime. Proposed laws can be debated, modified, softened or hardened. Ballot initiatives are take-it-or-leave-it.

State law already requires all convicted felons to give a DNA sample that goes into a continuously growing databank. Because repeat offenders commit most crimes, this sampling strategy makes sense.

DNA is a powerful tool that, when carefully analyzed, can definitively exonerate or implicate suspects. That’s why Bruce Harrington, a Newport Beach attorney and real estate developer, spent $1.3 million of his own money to get this measure on the ballot. Harrington’s brother and sister-in-law were murdered in 1980 by an unknown serial killer, and he believes that wider DNA collection could identify the perpetrator.

But Proposition 69 goes too far by requiring a cheek swab from all adults and juveniles arrested for a felony, whether they are found guilty or not. With few exceptions, the samples would stay on file forever.

Each year, an estimated 50,000 Californians arrested on felony charges are found not guilty or their cases are dropped. Yet under Proposition 69, the DNA swabs taken when these individuals are booked could stay in the database virtually at a judge’s unappealable discretion. The initiative turns these Californians into permanent “persons of interest” and clouds the bedrock presumption that one is innocent until proved guilty.

Supporters argue that some of the 34 states that collect DNA include arrestees for serious felonies along with convicts. Yet only Louisiana samples all arrestees, as Proposition 69 would allow. Moreover, every state with a DNA registry, including Louisiana, does more than California would do to expunge the records of those not convicted. The lack of safeguards could lead to abuses like trumped-up arrests just so police officers could get an individual’s DNA sample.

Big deal, say backers -- a law-abiding citizen whose DNA ends up in the state’s database has nothing to fear. Backers argue that as a unique identifier, DNA is not much different from a fingerprint. Since everyone with a driver’s license or a passport has been fingerprinted, why the fuss?

For one thing, fingerprinting is ubiquitous and not in itself a mark of suspicion. It is a narrow form of identification and does not carry the broad personal information of DNA. If the goal is to expand the state’s DNA database, the Legislature should at least build in safeguards to protect the innocent.

The Times urges a “no” vote on Proposition 69.