Pursuant to congressional mandate, individuals convicted of certain predicate offenses must submit to mandatory deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction. Such an intrusion on personal autonomy implicates the Fourth Amendment, which affords all citizens the right to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In United States v. Weikert, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in a case of first impression, considered whether a forced DNA submission violates the Fourth Amendment. In reversing the district court’s decision to grant the defendant’s motion for preliminary injunction, the court joined eleven circuits and concluded that extracting and retaining DNA profiles of supervised releasees during their supervised terms did not violate the Fourth Amendment. . . .
A case comment on the original district court opinion in this case is available here, in Volume 40.