Legal News

Jerry Brown announces plan to search DNA database for potential relatives of criminals

By Jason Siegel

California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a plan to track down more violent criminals by searching its DNA for potential relatives of violent criminals.

Police in Britain reported a 10 to 14 percent success rate using these partial DNA matches, United Press International reported.

California would be a leader in such searches, as most states don't vigorously pursue partial DNA matches, the Los Angeles Times reported.

?California will help local law enforcement catch violent criminals by providing, under special circumstances, the identity of a person in the DNA database who is the close relative of a suspect,? Brown told the California District Attorneys Association at their annual DNA/Cold Case Summit, according to a press release.

Civil liberties groups like the ACLU raise privacy concerns and are questioning the legality of the new policy, including the plan to open the database to include people arrested without being convicted.

Brown says that there are multiple conditions that show care before releasing a relative's identity, including a meetings between police and prosecutors that find it vital and all other leads exhausted.

The some legal scholars and the FBI officials that oversee the national database network are also concerned that courts will rule it an unreasonable search, the Times reported.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 29, 2008 (boomark / email).