Amicus Brief Submitted on DNA Databanking Law
In early 1999, ISLAT filed an amicus brief in a Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court case challenging the constitutionality
of collecting, storing and disseminating DNA samples of criminals
and accused individuals. The brief was based, in part, on
research that ISLAT director Lori Andrews had undertaken under
grants from the National Institutes of Health to analyze genetic
policies and from the National Science Foundation to analyze disputes
over body tissue, including in the context of DNA banking.
In the brief, ISLAT researchers Professor
Harold Krent and Lori Andrews and student assistant Michelle
Hibbert argued that the collection of DNA evidence is intrusive,
that secondary analysis of the samples violates the Fourth Amendment,
and that the law does not provide adequate quality assurance mechanisms
to protect DNA from misuse or invasion of privacy of both the
person from whom the DNA sample was collected and his or her relatives.
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