I’m talking about a situation when you haven’t been arrested, and aren’t particularly suspected of commiting the crime being investigated. Like, oh, you (a small woman) were at a party at someone’s house some evening, and later that night some tall masked man broke in and kidnapped someone. The police want to collect fingerprints from everyone at the party in order to eliminate those from known persons.
Can you simply say ‘no’?
Okay, that’ll probably make them more interested in you than they otherwise would be, but maybe that’s the better case. For example, a couple of years ago you did commit some other crime and you fear you may have left fingerprints behind then.
Also…
If the police asking for fingerprints in a situation like this said that the fingerprints would only be used for excluding fingerprints found at that crime scene and then would be discarded – not entered into a database or run through a database to see if anything else of interest showed up – should you believe it? Or is that just one of the ‘standard lies?’
That doesn’t address fingerprints being taken. I too am curious about whether they can somehow force or compel you to give fingerprints. I’m willing to bet they would charge you with resisting arrest or being disorderly or something like that to induce you to comply…
You can refuse to be fingerprinted, but the cops will just go to the court and get a judge to issue a court order that you comply. Then they can take the prints by force.
On what basis would they seek the order? You’re not suspected of any crime. IANAUSL, but isn’t there a US constitutional issue here? Something about protection from unreasonable searches and a need to establish “probably cause”?
If the police wanted them badly enough, I guess they could arrest you for interfering with an investigation. Once they had the prints, it wouldn’t matter whether the case was eventually thrown out. Or not. I am not a police officer and the ones I know as a matter of principle I don’t believe would use such tactics but I suspect it could be done.
What if you do not consent to be fingerprinted regardless of if you can refuse or not and then, the police lift your prints from a glass, phone or anything else you may have touched, we sometime see that scenario in TV shows.
Do the police have the right to take that glass you touched? If the police have the authority to collect the glass as evidence, they have the authority to run whatever tests they like on it. If they have a search warrant, or if the owner of the glass gave them permission to take it, then they have the right to test it.
TV has distorted the reliability of fingerprint evidence. Often forensics gets a partial and manufactures a complete print from it. It is time for fingerprint evidence to be tested in court. They are not as reliable as most people have been led to think. I would be reluctant to provide anything that can be distorted into a conviction. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/04/sunday/main4069140.shtml
4 years ago, police requested DNA samples (via cheek swabs) from the entire male population of Truro, MA. According to this article, there was no attempt to enforce giving a sample, beyond shame and gossip in the town.
In Ohio, under the circumstances you describe, yes, you would be within your rights to decline to cooperate. (As you note, however, that would almost certainly lead to the police paying even more attention to you).
In six years as a prosecutor and now almost eight as a magistrate, I’ve never heard of police asking for fingerprints with a promise that they will be destroyed after that particular investigation is concluded. Depending upon the professionalism of that department and the personal integrity of the officers involved (something which it may be difficult for you to judge), I can see why you just might choose not to believe them.
Yes, they can do that. The problem is that they cannot prove the prints on the glass are yours. It is very unlikely that you are the only person who ever touched the glass, and even more unlikely that they could prove that you are the only person who ever touched the glass.
The point about getting everyone legimately at the party/in the house to give a fingerprint sample is so that those samples can be compared with the prints found on glasses, doorknobs, etc throughout the house. It;s the prints that don’t match any of the samples given that interest the police.
In the scenario described by the OP, I cannot see any way that the police can compel anyone to give their fingerprints. Nor can I see any probable cause needed to obtain a search warrant. Refusing would cause us to give you more attention, but I know of no way that you could be arrested for refusing.
As for lifting prints from a glass, that might work to obtain prints. As UDS pointed out, they would have to go through a few more steps to establish that the prints were yours.
However, we could only seize the glass if it were thrown away (abandoned) or we had consent of the person who owns the glass and/or the place where it is before we can seize it. Where I am (Washington state), we can’t even search through your garbage can on the curb without a warrant.
There have been a few cases in which the police grabbed a discarded item, like a tissue, to obtain DNA for testing. Just a few weeks ago Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office did this to obtain evidence against one of their own detectives who is alleged to have killed a romantic rival 20 some years ago.