A person behind bars with hands cuffed. Photo from Getty Images.

By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — Accused of a felony? Refusing to hand your DNA over to a sheriff would be a misdemeanor under legislation moving through Indiana’s Senate.

In a Tuesday Corrections and Criminal Law Committee, witnesses alternately applauded Senate Bill 120 as a “fix” to an eight-year-old oversight and critiqued it as infringing on “genetic privacy.”

Author Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, said his proposal grew out of a conversation with Indiana State Police.

“It came up that, subsequent to us passing a bill requiring the collection of DNA on felony arrest in 2017, there had arisen at issue where individuals were refusing to submit that DNA in the booking procedure,” Crider said. His bill would make refusal a Class C misdemeanor — the state’s lowest.

Ashley Grogg, founder of anti-vaccine group Hoosiers for Medical Liberty, asked lawmakers to require the DNA after conviction. She cited a belief in “the right to due process” and “so that way our genetic privacy can be preserved.”

Committee Chair Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, noted the provision — that DNA be sampled at arrest, not conviction — is already law. While Crider’s bill appears to give sheriffs a novel responsibility, it actually echoes a requirement from the previous law. The two would be in different sections of Indiana Code.

Barbara Rosenberg, legislative director and legal counsel for Indiana State Police, said many sheriff’s departments had asked for the change, “just to fix what was already created.”

She assured lawmakers that Indiana Code already sets out a process for removing DNA samples from the state’s database. That’s only if the felony charges aren’t filed or are dismissed, the arrestee was acquitted of the felony charges or had them downgraded to misdemeanors, or the conviction was reversed and the case dismissed.

When charges aren’t filed after a year, the arrestee can write to the prosecutor asking for removal. Other cases require a letter to the Indiana State Police superintendent and a court order showing why the DNA should be removed from the state database.

When it’s destroyed, the superintendent must request its removal from the national DNA database.

The Indiana Sheriffs’ Association also spoke in support.

The legislation passed out of committee on a unanimous, 7-0 vote. It next heads to the Senate floor.