Texas Scorecard By Destin Sensky April 24, 2019
Only 50 members voting in favor of preserving the principle of innocent until proven guilty and keeping unconvicted Texans out of a government DNA data bank.Nearly two-thirds of the members of the Texas House believe government should have the ability to take your DNA and input it in a criminal database before you’re convicted of a crime.
In one of the Texas House’s most heated exchanges to date in the ongoing session, state representatives of every stripe and spot bickered back and forth about limits on government, specifically law enforcement, in obtaining and storing the thing that is most unique to the individual.
House Bill 1399, authored by freshman Republican State Rep. Reggie Smith (Sherman), would allow law enforcement to take a DNA sample from people arrested for felony-level offenses to be kept and stored in a data bank, even if the arrested individual is never subsequently convicted or even charged with having committed an offense.
The questions of the author and the testimony offered by members rising to speak for or against the bill that followed amounted to some of the most impassioned bipartisan exchanges in the session to date, as Democrats and Republicans alike gravitated to the microphone to debate for and against the legislation.
Bedford Republican State Rep. Jonathan Stickland spoke against the legislation by highlighting how it eschews due process protections for individuals. That exchange was reduced to writing and placed in the House journal as follows:
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/dna-first-due-process-later/
