Breaking: Supreme Court OK’s taking DNA upon arrest

[jberryhill]

17. Why bother with rape kits, then?

In 2003 a man concealing his face and armed with a gun
broke into a woman's home in Salisbury, Maryland. He
raped her. The police were unable to identify or appre
hend the assailant based on any detailed description or
other evidence they then had, but they did obtain from the
victim a sample of the perpetrator's DNA.

In 2009 Alonzo King was arrested in Wicomico County,
Maryland, and charged with first- and second-degree
assault for menacing a group of people with a shotgun. As
part of a routine booking procedure for serious offenses,
his DNA sample was taken by applying a cotton swab or
filter paper--known as a buccal swab--to the inside of his
cheeks. The DNA was found to match the DNA taken
from the Salisbury rape victim. King was tried and con
victed for the rape. Additional DNA samples were taken
from him and used in the rape trial, but there seems to be
no doubt that it was the DNA from the cheek sample
taken at the time he was booked in 2009 that led to his
first having been linked to the rape and charged with its
commission.

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Rapists don't usually leave fingerprints on their victims.