crimresearch said:
Personally, I would refuse to give a DNA sample, for a lot of the reasons others have already said. I just wouldn't be surprised if the police showed up to ask me a few questions later on, and I wouldn't blame them for pursuing what were the best available leads at the time.
Jeremy
pgwenthold said:
What is your basis for saying this? Refusing to cooperate with a non-mandatory request certainly can't be used as evidence against you, but where do you get the idea that the police are somehow not allowed to focus their investigation on you if you refuse to cooperate?
The police can investigate you in a variety of ways without violating any of your Constitutional rights.
The police can ask to search all the houses they want. It would be pretty dumb, though, because no one with anything to hide would let them, and they'd quickly destroy any public goodwill they had.
I never said anything of the kind. "Suspicious" and "guilty" are vastly different things.
True, but that's a completely separate issue -- a person can be wrongfully convicted even if the investigation against him was conducted perfectly legitimately.
Jeremy
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toddjh said:
Because they have to have a reason to consider you a suspect. If all they have is, "he didn't cooperate with an unjustified search and seizure," any conviction would be overturned anyway.
But they can't use an illegal search in their investigation.
How is this any different?
rikzilla
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toddjh said:
The problem with this is that if the police are truly interested in you, they will obtain a sample of your DNA. I watched one true crime story where the police needed a DNA sample from a suspect, but could not obtain a search warrant. They simply followed the guy around. When he tossed away a cigarette butt on the sidewalk they bagged and tagged it.
Apparently the technology has gotten good enough so that only a little saliva, or a single hair is enough to take a DNA profile.
The hard part of denying the police access to your DNA....would be keeping your DNA to yourself in the first place.
Like I said before...I'd be very surprised if DNA profiling wasn't used in the future, along with other biometrics, on licenses, passports, etc....
-z
pgwenthold said:
For the third time now, I'm not saying that refusal to cooperate could be used as evidence in court. I'm saying that it's an incentive for the police to do more digging -- through legal methods -- and see if there's something there.
I don't know where this "illegal search" thing is coming from. If you refuse to give a DNA sample, there was no illegal search, because there was no search at all.
Four reasons:
First, the crime in question was particularly heinous, so people will be more willing to cut the police some slack, especially in a small town.
Second, giving a DNA sample is, for most people, a lot less intrusive than letting strangers rummage through their personal effects.
Third, there is already DNA to test against, so the police are searching for a very specific thing which would make great strides in making sure justice was served. They wouldn't be, as I said, rummaging through personal effects just hoping to get lucky.
And fourth, I assume the request for DNA samples was made as a public announcement, not a one-on-one personal request. People feel a lot more free to refuse a request when it's anonymous.
Jeremy
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quote:
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Originally posted by toddjh
What is your basis for saying this? Refusing to cooperate with a non-mandatory requiest certainly can't be used as evidence against you, but where do you get the idea that the police are somehow bound not to focus their investigation on you if you refuse to cooperate?
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The police can decline to *exclude* you as a suspect, and hope for more evidence to develop, but how exactly do the police focus their investigation on you without proactively collecting more evidence?
If they follow you around, paw through your garbage, question all of your friends as to your guilt, ask your employer about you, etc, with nothing more to go on than your refusal to cooperate, they are treading on harrassment charges.
After the initial refusal, unless you do something like dump a body in broad daylight, the police are going to at some point, have to justify their futher actions with more than "He refused to take a DNA test".
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Originally posted by toddjh
What is your basis for saying this? Refusing to cooperate with a non-mandatory requiest certainly can't be used as evidence against you, but where do you get the idea that the police are somehow bound not to focus their investigation on you if you refuse to cooperate?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The police can decline to *exclude* you as a suspect, and hope for more evidence to develop, but how exactly do the police focus their investigation on you without proactively collecting more evidence?
If they follow you around, paw through your garbage, question all of your friends as to your guilt, ask your employer about you, etc, with nothing more to go on than your refusal to cooperate, they are treading on harrassment charges.
After the initial refusal, unless you do something like dump a body in broad daylight, the police are going to at some point, have to justify their futher actions with more than "He refused to take a DNA test".
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They never mention rape with this story. I dont think theres proof of forced sex relations.
Its kinda silly. Maybe theres somthing morethey know but whos to say the killer is a Truro townie. It coudlve been someone from a neighboring town. Turo isnt that big (physically) and there are lots of others who live on the Cape. They aint being swabbed.
When the police have ZERO evidence and they still hound you for no reason, aint that a form of harassment.
Its kinda silly. Maybe theres somthing morethey know but whos to say the killer is a Truro townie. It coudlve been someone from a neighboring town. Turo isnt that big (physically) and there are lots of others who live on the Cape. They aint being swabbed.
When the police have ZERO evidence and they still hound you for no reason, aint that a form of harassment.
crimresearch said:
Well, they could take a look at your criminal record. See if you had any kind of relationship with the victim. Ask you some questions about your whereabouts at the time of the crime, and check out your story if you give one. Same things they'd do to anyone they haven't ruled out -- except, by asking for DNA samples, they might have managed to rule out a few more people. Makes things a bit more efficient while keeping it 100% voluntary.
Even if you do decline to give a DNA sample, I find it hard to believe the police are going to be coming after you at all unless they already have some reason to suspect you -- and they're sure not going to be going to harassment level unless they have very strong reason to believe you're the one. I can only guess that hundreds of people will or have refused to give a sample, and, even if the police wanted to harass them all, I doubt they'd have the manpower to do it.
And, at that point, they'll have to concede there's no real reason to suspect you in particular, and move on. That's just what I said would happen if you're "under investigation" for something you didn't do.
Jeremy
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toddjh said:
But that's not all they said. Read the initial post:
"Police in a small town in Massachusetts are hoping to test the DNA of the entire adult male population as they try to solve a three-year-old murder.
Truro officials say the 790 men in the town have a right to refuse but those who do so will be closely checked."
They have also threatened the men in the town that they will come under suspicion just for refusing to comply with they blanket, undirected search.
pgwenthold said:
I just don't see that as a threat. You'd probably "come under suspicion" if you refused to tell police where you were at the time of the murder, too -- does that mean they shouldn't be allowed to ask that question?
Edited to add: If the police intentionally phrase a request to imply that it is mandatory or that there will be illegal consequences if you refuse, then I'm with you. My friend got her car torn apart after being pulled over for speeding because the officer's "request" to search it didn't sound too optional at the time. But in this case, they say flat-out that people have the right to refuse.
Jeremy
Elind
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Tmy said:
You say it so much better than I can. My problem is I tend to take paranoiac self inflated ego types too seriously. Thank for bringing me down to earth.
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toddjh said:
Note that I'm still confining this to the scenario of a totally random, and presumed innocent person declining to give a DNA sample.
Once the police decide that you are under suspicion, they can NOT bring you in for questioning as to your whereabouts without Mirandizing you...which since you have already declined to cooperate, is going to be a waste of time.
And as far as the other means of developing probable cause, if they did that in the first place, they would have been more likely to have grounds to legally compel a sample in the first place.
Defense lawyers make their living off of cops who start with suspicion, and try to work their way back to evidence.
pgwenthold
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toddjh said:
No, they should NOT be allowed to just walk down the street and ask everyone they see where they were at the time of a murder.
Witnesses are one thing. People who might know something is another. But they can't round up the whole town and require everyone to come up with an alibi or be considered a suspect.
I can hold a gun to your head and ask you to suck my d!ck or I shoot. Do you have the right to refuse?
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Elind said:
So your evasion of the Richard Jewell question is to label him a "paranoiac self inflated ego type "?
I guess that is easier than providing evidence to back up your assertion.
crimresearch said:
Not necessarily. As other people have said, they might refuse to give a DNA sample because they don't want it kept on file. I wouldn't give a DNA sample, but I'd still talk to the police even if it meant being Mirandized and going down to the station and everything. I didn't do it, after all, and answering questions might get them off my back and help them find the guy.
Then they still could, no?
Well, the usefulness of the idea is another separate issue. All I'm concerned with here is its legality.
Jeremy
pgwenthold said:
We already went through this with your house-searching example. I agree that that would be a stupid course of action. I don't see anything illegal about it, though.
The police weren't threatening anyone with anything illegal.
Jeremy
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"Then they still could, no?"
Not based on *nothing more* than your refusal to give a DNA sample. If that is all they have, they are crossing the line from a routine investigation of everyone, to harrassing an individual for exercising their Constitutional rights.
If you want to refuse to give a DNA sample, and then voluntarily go in and answer questions, show them your phone reocrds, etc. that is also your right.
If after you refuse to give a sample, something turns up that would have turned up anyway, that is OK.
But anything obtained by the police has to be outside of the '*Because* he refused to give a sample' box.
Not based on *nothing more* than your refusal to give a DNA sample. If that is all they have, they are crossing the line from a routine investigation of everyone, to harrassing an individual for exercising their Constitutional rights.
If you want to refuse to give a DNA sample, and then voluntarily go in and answer questions, show them your phone reocrds, etc. that is also your right.
If after you refuse to give a sample, something turns up that would have turned up anyway, that is OK.
But anything obtained by the police has to be outside of the '*Because* he refused to give a sample' box.