Attorney General Candidate Ignores Basic Principles of Justice
In the American judicial system, we have a presumption of innocence until a prosecutor successfully proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury of our peers. We have things like due process, probable cause, and warrants. We have a Constitutional protection AGAINST illegal search and seizure. Heck, we even have a basic right to privacy.
Rob Teilhet wants to do away with all of this though, in an attempt to keep us “safer”. He wants you to be forced to provide your DNA to cops when they arrest you, with no warrant and no probable cause. It is scary when ANYONE does this – but an Attorney General candidate???
And the Atlanta media wants to go along with this, giving him a VERY favorable story while basically painting those of us who actually believe in the things I mentioned above as irrelevant, at best.
Once again, they prey on emotionalism to try to get you to give up your rights. They point to 24 felons arrested in Tennessee and linked to previous crimes, but they conveniently ignore the thousands of people who now have their DNA in a government criminal database. People who have done nothing more than be arrested for a crime – they may not have even been formally accused of the crime by a prosecutor, much less convicted of it!
46 States, including Georgia, already require DNA samples of convicted felons. The key word there is convicted. As in the entire American judicial process was followed, including presumption of innocence, probable cause, warrants, and trial by jury. I have absolutely no problems with this. This is the proper route for something such as this, and once a person is convicted, I agree with most Americans that they have willfully surrendered some of the rights that the rest of us enjoy.
But Rob Teilhet wants you to have to give a sample of your DNA to a cop such as these guys, who were so inept that they broke into a ladies’ house and killed her – then were themselves convicted of having planted the evidence!
Mr. Teilhet, I choose to keep my Constitutional rights, thank you very much. It appears maybe you should learn basic Constitutional Law before you try to be the highest law expert in the State.
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December 31st, 2009 at 8:20 am
Typical politician. All of these guys are much more interested in ruling us than in serving us. But, this kind is especially dangerous. Thanks for keeping us informed.
January 13th, 2010 at 10:11 am
I enjoy your blog, because I also consider myself to be a Libertarian. As a criminal defense attorney who regularly litigates Fouth Amendment issues, I think that the second paragraph of this post should be addressed.
A person may only be arrested if the police have obtained a valid warrant or if there is probable cause to support a warrantless arrest. If DNA is obtained by the police under circumstances where there’s neither a warrant or PC (as you have indicated), the DNA sample and any evidence obtained as a derivative of the DNA sample would be subject to suppression as unlawfully-obtained evidence or derivative evidence (sometimes referred to as “the fruit of the poisonous tree”).
Therefore, I don’t think that requiring an arrestee to provide DNA is offensive to our constitutionally-guaranteed liberties provided that the collection method is minimally intrusive. To say otherwise would be like saying that police cannot fingerprint an arrestee.
January 27th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/ag-candidate-in-federal-285004.html
Was surprised we didn’t have a story up about this.
January 27th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Donna, That link didn’t work and I couldn’t find what you were referring to. What happened?
January 27th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
The link worked for me, from your post!
This is the title of the story
“AG candidate in federal court — as the defendant’
January 27th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
From my post….too late to be typing.
BTW, I liked your article on the SOTU speech. All a bunch of nonsense, never accomplishing anything substantial.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Ken Hodges defends the innocent and prosecutes the guilty. Ken is a friend of the black community in South Georgia. Bob Teilet is a politician who has no concept of the law and no experience in court.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:32 am
He prosecutes anyone to ticks him off. That’s not what we need in an Attorney General.