Does Forced Extraction of An Imprisoned Person's Blood or Saliva for DNA Analysis Violate His Fourth Amendment Rights ?

In State v. Cremeans, 160 Ohio App.3d 1, 6-10, 2005 Ohio 928, 825 N.E.2d 1124, the Second Appellate District engaged in a lengthy analysis of both theories and held R.C. 2901.07 constitutional pursuant to the traditional totality-of-the-circumstances approach. The court indicated its holding did not "preclude the possibility that R.C. 2901.07 might survive scrutiny under the special-needs doctrine." Id. at 13. However, the Cremeans court stated it preferred the totality-of-the-circumstances approach because it comports more clearly with the traditional analysis prescribed by the Fourth Amendment. Id. supra, at 13. However, the court stated: "regardless of whether we interpret R.C. 2901.07 as serving some special need distinct from ordinary law enforcement, as the trial court did, or whether we perceive the statute as furthering a traditional law enforcement objective, the conclusion is the same: the compelled extraction of Cremeans' blood or saliva for DNA analysis does not violate his Fourth Amendment rights. Under the special-needs approach, a key consideration in the Fourth Amendment balancing of interests is finding that the DNA analysis is being conducted primarily for non-law enforcement purposes. On the other hand, under the pure totality-of-the-circumstances approach that we favor, an inmate's reduced expectation of privacy is a paramount consideration when balancing competing interests to find the DNA testing reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. "As one appellate court astutely has observed, however, 'regardless of which analytic approach we follow, we see a common thread that leads to the conclusion the Fourth Amendment is not offended by the statute. Incarcerated felons have a substantially diminished expectation of privacy. The testing, by needle or swab, is minimally intrusive. The State is not investigating a particular or specific crime. It is conducting a technologically accurate identification procedure that will enhance the administration of justice - reaching back to solve past crimes and extending forward to identify future offenders, convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent.' People v. Peppers (2004), 352 Ill. App. 3d 1002, 817 N.E.2d 1152, 1157, 288 Ill. Dec. 502" Cremeans, supra, at 13.