Local woman has a hand in Supreme Court decision

“I was over the moon happy. It was the most exciting news I have received in, I don’t know how long,” Mika Moulton said.

All 50 states passed laws allowing DNA testing after a criminal gets convicted, but now police can take DNA samples from suspects without even a warrant signed by a judge. The high court ruling comes as an appeal in the case of a Maryland man arrested in 2009 on assault charges. Police later tied him through his DNA to a rape years earlier.

“Once it was at the U.S. Supreme Court, being involved with the Surviving Parents Coalition, I pushed it forward. I want to make sure this continues. If we have these laws, I want to make sure they’re enforced,” Moulton said.

Mika Moulton created Christopher’s Clubhouse after a man kidnapped and killed her ten-year-old son. She continues to advocate for victim’s rights.

“I submitted written testimony to go into an amicus brief to the Supreme Court. It was to make sure that DNA on felony arrests would be upheld in not just Maryland but all states,” Moulton said.

According to the supreme court, a cheek swab for DNA is now ok as long at the person being swabbed gets accused of a serious crime, a definition up for debate.

“DNA is the fingerprint of the 21st century. Years ago we had wanted posters to find the bad guys, then we had technology for fingerprints. Now we have DNA. That is the new way of exonerating people who are wrongly convicted and solving cold cases,” Moulton said.

Murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping and arson for sure … but, what else?

“Justice Scalia who is the arch conservative on the Supreme Court, he railed against that and said when do you stop collecting this information? Do you start collecting it when people register a vehicle, do you collect this when they sign up for school?” attorney at law Shaffer Cormell said.

The Supreme Court ruled when police take a DNA sample, its a minor intrusion to a person who’s already been arrested.

“There’s some real concern from civil libertarians that this is just one more move for the government to get information on citizenry and use it and collect it,” Cormell said.

Moulton looks at this way…

“Think about if it was your child, your wife, or your mother that was being raped. How would you feel then?” she said.