Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said that while Virginia has approved DNA testing at the time of arrest, the concept will be a "hard sell" in Maryland, particularly with civil libertarians. O'Malley has modeled his proposal on Virginia's program.
Miller said he supports the idea. "Every so often government has to get involved to protect people in spite of themselves," he said.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch said that while he hasn't staked out a position on the idea yet, he is gratified that the governor is making public safety a major theme in his agenda this year.
"I told the governor as long as you have a record number of homicides in Baltimore, you've got to do something," Busch said.
In his testimony yesterday, Kramer tried to allay concerns about government abuse of a huge DNA arrest database.
He noted that the only permissible uses of the DNA sample -- collected through a swab on the inside of a cheek -- would be to check the genetic information for a match against genetic samples collected at crime scenes.
Under Kramer's bill, any other use of the sample, such as to discover communicable diseases or mental illness, or to create a genetic "profile" to check for predisposition to criminality, would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
According to an analysis by the Department of Legislative Services, 44 states, including Maryland, require all convicted felons to provide the government with a DNA sample.
Eleven states have passed laws authorizing genetic sampling of arrestees, including Virginia, where the state's highest court recently upheld a constitutional challenge to the law.
"This has been exceedingly successful in Virginia ... resulting in hundreds of arrests," Kramer said.
But the constitutionality of the practice remains unsettled, because the Supreme Court has not ruled on the matter.
In 2006, Minnesota's Court of Appeals overturned a statute authorizing DNA sampling of arrestees. And last year, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford vetoed a similar law passed in the state legislature, writing to lawmakers: "I believe this bill takes too big a bite from the foundation of civil liberty and privacy that are the hallmark of the American way of life."
Stephen B. Mercer, a criminal defense attorney from Rockville who tried in 2004 to persuade the state's highest court that Maryland's DNA databank was unconstitutional, told lawmakers yesterday that the Maryland Court of Appeals would likely overturn the legislation.
