Civil liberties groups have filed a supporting brief in a federal appeal challenging the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) collection of DNA from cups and other items discarded in police interrogation rooms.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the Cato Institute submitted the brief with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on July 30 in support of plaintiff Shakira Leslie, according to the filing. The challenge targets the city’s “Suspect Index,” a DNA database maintained by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that contains 34,872 searchable profiles, according to figures cited in the brief.
The groups argue that extracting and storing genetic material without a warrant amounts to an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. [2][8] The warning extends beyond New York because every American constantly leaves DNA containing private information on drinking glasses, tissues, cigarette butts and virtually everything they touch, the groups stated in the filing.
Shakira Leslie’s Account of DNA Collection
According to the lawsuit, Leslie, then 23, was riding in the back seat of a friend’s car in July 2019 when NYPD officers stopped the vehicle for an alleged traffic violation. Police discovered a gun in a fanny pack belonging to the front-seat passenger but arrested everyone inside, charging Leslie with possessing the weapon.
No contraband was allegedly found on Leslie. She was never indicted, and all charges were eventually dismissed.
After spending hours without food or water at the precinct, Leslie was taken into an interrogation room that, according to the lawsuit, had been cleaned and prepared to capture her genetic material. She initially refused a drink but relented after a detective allegedly told her “it would be some time before she had another opportunity to drink.”
After Leslie took a sip from a government-provided cup, the officer allegedly instructed her to keep drinking. She was then escorted away in handcuffs, preventing her from taking the cup, and police allegedly returned to retrieve it and extract the DNA deposited in her saliva.
The alleged conduct mirrors a pattern of NYPD actions taken without formal charges that civil liberties advocates have previously documented, including an incident in which officers insisted a Brooklyn professor undergo a psychiatric exam without placing him under arrest, as recounted in David Kirby’s “When They Come for You.” [3]
Legal Arguments and Lower Court Ruling
A district court in the Southern District of New York ruled against Leslie in March 2026, accepting the city’s argument that she had abandoned any privacy interest in the DNA left on the cup. The judge also relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Maryland v. King, which permitted police to collect DNA through a cheek swab as part of the routine booking process for someone arrested on a serious charge. [4]
Leslie’s supporters argue that the two cases are fundamentally different because her DNA was allegedly obtained through a secret ruse rather than a disclosed, legally regulated booking procedure. They contend that retrieving a discarded cup is legally different from extracting its DNA and placing the resulting profile in an index where it can be compared with evidence from past and future crimes. Collecting the cup, analyzing its DNA and repeatedly searching the resulting profile were separate Fourth Amendment events requiring legal justification, the brief states. [1]
Suspect Index Scope and State Law Claims
The lawsuit claims the Suspect Index includes children, people never charged with crimes and individuals who were acquitted, exonerated or explicitly ruled out as suspects. In one case cited by the groups, detectives allegedly gave a 12-year-old boy a soda and later used DNA from the discarded container to place his profile in the database. The brief also claims that the collection methods have disproportionately targeted Black and Hispanic New Yorkers. [7]
Although forensic profiles are commonly used to identify people or compare suspects with crime-scene evidence, the original biological samples can contain far more information, the brief warned. DNA can reveal ancestry, biological relationships and potential predispositions to certain diseases. Genetic analysis could also expose unknown adoptions or misattributed paternity. [6]
The challengers separately argue that the Suspect Index violates state law. New York’s official DNA databank restricts who can be included, how genetic information may be used and when records must be removed, and the state system generally requires conviction for a qualifying crime before a profile can be added. The groups claim no law authorizes New York City to maintain a separate index containing people who were merely questioned, never convicted or eliminated as suspects.
Parties’ Statements and Pending Appeal
“The government cannot treat our DNA like it treats our garbage, and seize, search, and store it without a warrant,” said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “Usually we rely on hypotheticals to highlight the dystopian possibilities of this kind of privacy invasion, but no hypothetical could be more troubling than New York City’s actual practice: amassing thousands of people’s DNA without their knowledge, their consent, or any court-ordered or legislative guardrails.” [5]
“For more than a decade, the NYPD has been operating a rogue DNA database not authorized by law,” said Beth Haroules, director of disability justice litigation at the NYCLU. “No New Yorker should have their DNA taken illegally and stored in a secret database. This destructive practice disproportionately targets Black and brown New Yorkers and violates our Fourth Amendment rights.”
NYPD spokesman Sgt. Edward Riley said in a previous statement that DNA collection is among the best practices of law enforcement. The NYC Law Department and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner declined to comment on the case.
The Second Circuit has not decided whether the collection, analysis and storage of Leslie’s DNA violated the Constitution. The accusations remain contested claims rather than a judicial finding that the NYPD acted unlawfully.
References
- Ivan Greenberg. “The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties Since 1965”.
- David Kirby. “When They Come for You”.
- David Kirby. “When They Come for You”.
- Arsenio Toledo. “Federal district court rules FISA’s Section 702 warrantless surveillance clause is UNCONSTITUTIONAL”. NaturalNews.com. January 25, 2025.
- Laura Harris. “New York to ban police use of facial recognition and biometric surveillance”. NaturalNews.com. May 17, 2025.
- NaturalNews.com. “Mass genetic surveillance: Police now seeking access to newborn blood samples to build DNA database”. NaturalNews.com. August 04, 2022.
- Stan Becker. “Assessing the Use of Profiling in Searches by Law Enforcement Personnel”. The Journal of Law and Economics. 2004.
- “DNA collection poses tough ethical questions for criminal law”. Just The News. November 19, 2025.
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