A bill that would add Oregon to a list of more than 30 states that require law enforcement officials to collect the DNA of every serious felony suspect upon their arrest advanced out of a legislative committee Monday. The bill would represent a significant shift from current law, which allows the state to take DNA samples only upon a felony conviction.
Supporters of the bill say broader collection of DNA would enable police access to a larger pool of potential offenders and significantly increase chances of solving old cases — ranging from rape to robbery to murder — that may have gathered dust for years.
But opponents of House Bill 3093 raised deep privacy and constitutional concerns, arguing that drawing the blood or swabbing the cheeks of people that police merely suspect of committing crimes would undermine the bedrock American principle of innocence until proven guilty.
“An arrest does not mean guilt, and numerous arrests are ultimately proven to be mistaken and are even sometimes wrongful or unlawful,” said Michael Abrams, policy counsel for ACLU of Oregon, in written testimony submitted to the House Judiciary Committee last month.
Abrams worries people of color, who are disproportionately arrested under accusations of committing serious offenses, will bear the brunt of the bill if it becomes law.
Abrams also told lawmakers to expect court challenges. A 2007 Oregon Supreme Court ruling, State v. Sanders, found the state’s practice of retrieving DNA samples from defendants who are convicted is acceptable but said doing so without a warrant or conviction is a violation of privacy rights.
But Ashley Spence, founder of the Texas-based DNA Justice Project, told the committee that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 cleared up any confusion over the constitutionality of the practice. In Maryland v. King, Spence noted, the high court equated the collection of DNA at the time of arrest to the legal taking of fingerprints or mugshots of the accused.
In advocating for Oregon’s bill, Spence shared her personal story, telling the committee that when she was an Arizona college student more than 20 years ago, a stranger crept into her apartment, smothered her face with a pillow, then beat and raped her for hours. She said it was seven years before the man was arrested in California on allegations of tussling with an officer. Because California had a law allowing all felony suspects to be swabbed for DNA upon arrest and entered into a national database, she said, he was soon linked to her case.
“It hit a match back to mine and multiple others,” Spence said. “He was a serial predator with a shed behind his home full of women’s underwear and ID cards from all over the world.”
Spence said if her attacker’s DNA hadn’t been collected upon arrest, he likely would have been released from jail and never shown up to court, knowing that a DNA swab upon conviction would reveal his serious criminal past.
“As the law stands in Oregon today, my rapist would still be free out there raping and harming other women,” Spence said.
Specifically, Oregon’s bill would require law enforcement to collect the DNA of anyone arrested for “person” felonies, which include murder, sexual assault, home burglary, robbery, felony driving under the influence of intoxicants, assault, hit-and-run driving where a victim is injured and certain hate crimes. Arrests for many other felony crimes would be excluded from the new law, including car theft, commercial burglary, drug dealing and shoplifting.
According to the DNA Justice Project, 31 states have similar laws, including two of Oregon’s neighbors, California and Nevada. Nineteen of those states go a step farther, granting law enforcement the authority to collect DNA from people arrested for any level of felony, according to the project.
The bill’s chief sponsor is Rep. Rick Lewis, a Republican from Silverton and former police officer and police chief of 39 years. He told his colleagues on the committee that, under the bill, after a person’s DNA is collected, it would be entered into a national database that would only identify it by computer-generated code. Lewis said anyone who isn’t ultimately convicted could have their DNA removed from the database upon request.
Monday, committee members voted 5-3 to send the bill to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which will analyze its impact on the budget and then could send the bill to the House floor.
Three Democrats voted against the bill: Rep. Tom Anderson of Salem, Rep. Willy Chotzen of Southeast Portland and Rep. Farrah Chaichi of Aloha.
“I just feel like DNA is our most personal private property and having the state hold onto that when they could have made a mistake and having that in the system so long is just too big of a risk for my comfort,” Chaichi said.
A mix of Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill: Lewis, the bill’s Republican sponsor; committee chairperson and Bend Democrat Rep. Jason Kropf; Rep. Thuy Tran, a Portland Democrat; Rep. Kevin Mannix, a Salem Republican; and Kim Wallan, a Medford Republican.
Wallan said she originally opposed the idea when Lewis filed a similar bill in 2023, but since then she’s come to realize that collected DNA can also be used to exonerate defendants. She said she also believes officially gathering samples from each arrestee is better than police lifting genetic material “from saliva from a cup that you accidentally left on the table in the interrogation room.”
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