Probation Department’s Unauthorized Taking of DNA Evidence Required Suppression/Inevitable Discovery Doctrine Applied to Deny Suppression of Identification Evidence and Defendant’s Statement
The Second Department determined the unauthorized taking of a buccal swap from a probationer for DNA testing required suppression of the DNA evidence. The fact that the defendant was on probation did not strip the defendant of his Fourth Amendment rights. However, because another DNA sample had been properly taken from the defendant a few days before, the identification evidence and defendant’s statement should not have been suppressed pursuant to the inevitable discovery doctrine:
The hearing court properly suppressed DNA evidence as tainted since the Nassau County Probation Department (hereinafter the Probation Department) took an unauthorized buccal swab from the defendant, which was a bodily intrusion subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment … . * * * The defendant’s status as a probationer did not “justify departures from the customary constitutional standards that apply in other settings” …, where, as here, it is undisputed that the provision of a DNA sample was not a condition of the defendant’s probation under any statutory or judicial authority. Moreover, since the DNA sample taken from the defendant implicated his constitutional rights, we reject the People’s argument that the Probation Department, in taking the unauthorized buccal swab, only committed a statutory violation that did not warrant suppression of evidence … .
The record reveals that an authorized DNA sample was taken from the defendant in connection with another, unrelated charge only days before he was arrested on the charges at issue on this appeal. Since another DNA sample had been taken from the defendant prior to his arrest, the People established a very high degree of probability that the evidence in question would have been obtained independently of the tainted source during the normal course of police investigation … . Accordingly, the hearing court should not have suppressed the identification evidence and the defendant’s statement to the police. People v Adams, 2014 NY Slip Op 06098, 2nd Dept 9-10-14