The cases of Maryland v. King and Florida v. Harris Essay

The cases of Maryland v. King and Florida v. Harris - Essay Example In such scenarios, I believe that the overall circumstances must be considered in totality instead of referring to different legal provisions in isolation and verifying compliance with them. It is also vital that the final decision becomes source of benefit for the maximum number of stakeholders involved and doesn’t breach the universally accepted rights. This paper discusses similar two cases, elaborating on legal facts of the case and arguments presented by different courts. It includes my critical evaluation of the two cases where I strongly agreed or disagreed to either court’s decisions, concurring opinions or dissenting judgments. Case 1 – Maryland v. King: Agreement This began in 2003 when a masked man named Alonzo King raped a woman in Maryland and escaped, not to be found until in 2009, when he got arrested and was identified during a DNA cheek swab test as part of routine search procedures. DNA sample matched the previous one from rape case and hence th e criminal was charged with former offences as well. Subsequently, King went into the Circuit Court to hold that the authorities were not entitled, as per Fourth Amendment Rules, to evade his privacy and conduct routine search on him and therefore any evidence drawn during the course of such procedures shall be invalid and cannot be held in the court of law. The court disagreed and continued to penalize him with life sentenced imprisonment with no allowance of parole. However, eventually Court of Appeals of Maryland agreed to notion presented by King and disregarded the conviction placed on him. In event of disagreement, the Supreme Court intervened and declared King as guilty as there is no violation of Fourth Amendment requirements. Justice Roberts, Thomas, Breyer and Alito gave concurrence that it doesn’t constitute to invasion of privacy while Justice Scalia, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Kagan gave dissenting opinion that DNA test is too specific and advanced to be considered as a routine procedural check and is only executed when there is a preconceived suspicion on an individual (Supreme Court of the United States, 2013a). I agree with the court’s final decision in this case as it seems most appropriate, legitimate and socially correct. Firstly, nature and duration cheek swab test is so minor that it cannot be considered to be a source of privacy intrusion. Secondly, it is essential to consider the end-results to any incidence. In this case, the DNA test eventually generated favorable results by identifying a criminal that was long lost and roaming free in our society. Thus, this decision also indirectly benefits our community by keeping its interests safe from such escaped criminals. DNA test is merely a method used for crosschecking an identity so it can be stored in database for subsequent retrieval and can also be used to generate past criminal history of the guilty individual. Additionally, the Fourth Amendment rules cannot be stated to hav e been breached if any check or search has been conducted in pure good faith with no biased intentions. Obviously, it is difficult to prove good faith but overall circumstances, as in this case, give clear cues regarding the reasons behind the test being conducted. Therefore, in light of the above arguments, I believe that court’s decision was legally as well as ethically correct and furthermore, I would strongly recommend that regulatory authorities must use lessons from such instances to adjust legal provisions and include DNA testing practice in standard routine search procedures as it does atleast no harm to the society as a whole, if not