Court: California Can Force Inmates To Submit DNA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court says California can continue to force all felony arrestees to submit DNA samples.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday said law enforcement's interest in solving cold cases, identifying crime suspects and even exonerating the wrongly accused outweigh any privacy concerns raised by the forced DNA collections.

The DNA samples are obtained with a swab of the cheek and stored in the state's DNA database, which contains more than 1.5 million profiles.

The American Civil Liberties Union sought to stop the collections. The ACLU argued they were unconstitutional searches and seizures since some of the suspects who submit DNA samples will later be exonerated.