In the Matter of the Welfare of: M.L.M., Minn.S.Ct., 1/25/2012. The state alleged that in 2008 M.L.M. and another juvenile used scissors to remove security sensors from un-purchased merchandise and then stole that merchandise. Possession and use of the scissors is a felony but the theft, because of the value of the merchandise, was only a gross misdemeanor. M.L.M. entered a guilty plea to the gross misdemeanor in exchange for dismissal of all other charges. The juvenile court ordered M.L.M. to provide a DNA exemplar.
M.L.M. challenged the DNA requirement as an unreasonable search and seizure, and as a denial of equal protection. Both the trial court and the court of appeals rejected these challenges. The supreme court, three justices dissenting, uphold the lower courts. Here’s the opening paragraph of Justice Meyer’s dissent:
I respectfully dissent. M.L.M. was adjudicated delinquent for the purpose of rehabilitation. It is a disposition at the other end of the harmlessness scale from a sentence for a felony conviction. The collection and retention of the biological specimen for DNA implicate strong privacy interests apart from those intruded upon by the collection of the specimen, amount to full-scale personal DNA searches because of the potential for exposure of exceptionally private information contained in the DNA, and operate as a permanent burden on privacy. I would conclude that the State’s interest in taking a biological specimen from a juvenile adjudicated as delinquent, without probable cause, does not outweigh the juvenile’s privacy interest. I would hold that the DNA collection statute is unconstitutional as applied to a juvenile adjudicated to be delinquent for a gross misdemeanor.
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