NEWS FLASH

Christie Signs Law That Forces Anyone Suspected Of Violent Crime To Submit DNA For State Database | New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) signed a bill into law today that expands the state’s DNA Database and Databank law to require DNA samples from anyone arrested on the suspicion of certain violent crimes. The law previously only required people tried and convicted of violent offenses to submit their DNA to the database. Under the expanded law, anyone arrested on suspicion crimes ranging from murder, manslaughter; second degree aggravated assault; kidnapping; luring or enticing a child; engaging in sexual conduct which would impair or debauch the morals of a child; or aggravated sexual assault, or “an attempt to commit any of these offenses” must submit DNA. The law does allow those whose charges were dismissed or acquitted to request the sample is destroyed. As opponents of the law notes, the law “unfairly infringes upon the rights of those who have not been convicted of a crime.”