In November 2004, California voters passed Proposition 69, also known the California DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime, and Innocence Protection Act. The law required, in part, that any person who is arrested or charged with a felony submit to a DNA test, regardless of whether the arrest was valid or legal, and also that any person who had previously been convicted of a felony submit to a DNA test.

Just over a month after the passage of the law, on December 7, 2004, a group of former arrestees and former prisoners, as well as two advocacy groups, brought this class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the California attorney general, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs, represented by various ACLU chapters and private counsel, asked the court for both declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the law violated the plaintiffs' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Within two months, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing. On April 22, 2005, the District Court (Judge Fern Smith) granted the motion to dismiss (365 F.Supp.2d 1119). She held that the plaintiffs lacked standing and ripeness because the state of California had not yet implemented a program for the collection of DNA.

Jonathan Forman - 07/09/2013


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