Local News

Supreme Court declines to review use of DNA in Chelsea stabbing

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By Eric Levenson @ejleven

January 12, 2016

1 minute to read

The Supreme Court will not review the case of a Chelsea man whose conviction partly relied on DNA evidence obtained without a search warrant, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said on Monday.

Manuel Arzola, 57, was convicted in 2012 of a non-fatal stabbing in Chelsea and sentenced to seven years in prison. One piece of evidence at the trial was Arzola’s bloodstained shirt, which DNA analysis showed contained the blood of the victim.

Arzola appealed his conviction, arguing that DNA evidence reveals private information and therefore constitutes a “search’’ under the Fourth Amendment. Because the government did not acquire a search warrant, that evidence should not have been allowed at trial, they argued.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Arzola’s appeal last year. The court ruled that the DNA sample, as used by law enforcement, only revealed the identity of the source, akin to a fingerprint analysis. It therefore did not require a search warrant.

“Although we recognize that the science of DNA analysis may evolve and enable DNA profiling to uncover from these loci information more personal than the identity and sex of its source, the loci tested in this case ‘are not at present revealing information beyond identification’ and sex,’’ the court ruled.

(In DNA, “loci’’ are the parts that contain identifying information.)

The Supreme Court’s decision not to review the case means that the state court ruling stands.

Arzola’s attorney Katy Essington told The Boston Globe she was disappointed in the ruling.

“The use of DNA evidence is becoming more and more prevalent in criminal cases and there are serious privacy concerns related to the government’s testing of our personal effects and clothing for the purpose of creating a DNA profile which will then, in most cases, be entered into a database,’’ Essington said.