The U.S. Supreme Court has put on hold — at least for a week — a ruling by Maryland’s highest court that prohibits DNA collection from suspects charged but not yet convicted in violent crimes.
Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler had asked the nation’s highest court to intervene in the case of Alonzo Jay King Jr. v. State of Maryland after his bid failed to have the Maryland Court of Appeals reverse its own decision. The order grants a stay until at least July 25.
In a statement, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said he was “encouraged” by the order which “may indeed result in identifying perpetrators in some of Maryland’s most horrific unsolved cases where DNA was left at the scene of the crime.” David Paulson, a Gansler spokesman, said police agencies “certainly may” resume DNA collection, though lawyers in the attorney general’s office were still weighing how they would advise those agencies on how to proceed.”
Stephen Mercer, the chief attorney for the Office of the Maryland Public Defender’s Forensics Division, said the public defender’s office...
.jpg){kind=link}