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COMMENTARY: Lying to get DNA evidence from innocent people should not be tolerated

FLORIDA COURIER — Voluntarily submitted. That is the context for a second tragedy that has now unfolded. In October of 2018, Orlando police went to the home of Eleanor Holmes in Valdosta, Georgia. There the police approached Mrs. Holmes at her front gate and asked her if she would consent to providing a DNA cheek-swab so that police could identify a possible relative in Orlando who had been found dead many years earlier. That was a lie. Orlando police were actually looking for evidence to link Mrs. Holmes son to the murder of Christina Franke.

Published

5 years ago

March 14, 2020

Oakland Post

The Fourth Amendment protects all private citizens; the innocent perhaps even more than those suspected of criminal activity. The taking of DNA from a person not suspected of a crime, by lying to that person, in order to obtain evidence against her son, was shocking behavior. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)

By Leroy Pernell, Florida Courier

A horrible tragedy occurred in 2001 when 25-year-old Christina Franke was brutally murdered in her central Florida home. Without leads, the case remained unsolved for 17 years.

In 2018, Orlando police, using a relatively new technique referred to as “Target Testing” sought out family DNA information for use in a program called GEDMatch. The acceptance of such programs in court has yet to be fully determined.

However, a key component has been the use of family DNA voluntarily submitted in programs such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe.

Voluntarily submitted. That is the context for a second tragedy that has now unfolded. In October of 2018, Orlando police went to the home of Eleanor Holmes in Valdosta, Georgia.

There the police approached Mrs. Holmes at her front gate and asked her if she would consent to providing a DNA cheek-swab so that police could identify a possible relative in Orlando who had been found dead many years earlier. That was a lie.

Orlando police were actually looking for evidence to link Mrs. Holmes son to the murder of Christina Franke.

Not guilty plea

It is unclear whether police had sufficient evidence to form probable cause for such suspicion but what was clear is that police had already used this lie to trick other members of Mrs. Holmes family into providing a DNA sample.

The information gained from the police deception was used to ultimately charge Mrs. Holmes son, Benjamin Jr., with the death of Christina.

Benjamin has pled not guilty and it remains to be seen what role this largely unproven and deceptively received DNA evidence (the DNA not of the accused but of his family) will play in that trial.

Trickery is not ethical

Issues of the DNA reliability aside, the issue here is not the guilt or innocence of the accused but whether an American citizen not accused of anything, can be tricked into causing her child to be prosecuted.

Taking personal DNA information from private citizens, without a warrant and through deceit, is an outrageous, unreasonable and unconstitutional invasion of privacy. The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2018 challenged the proposition that lies can be used to gain consent to enter a home.

That situation involved a defendant’s home. This situation is much worse. Mrs. Holmes is not a suspect and information from her body receives much greater Fourth Amendment protection than does the home.

The Florida Supreme Court has only approved obtaining saliva samples by deception-obtained consent only from a defendant who was already in custody pursuant to probable cause.

Protected privacy violated?

It was also unnecessary. There was no indication of an attempt to obtain a warrant, or indeed, being honest with Mrs. Holmes as to the real purpose. She may well have cooperated in order to clear her son’s name.

Nor is there any indication that exigent circumstances existed that might justify warrantless action.

While there is precedent for allowing police to lie to a suspect after the suspect has knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waived his or her right to remain silent, in order to obtain a confession there is no such precedent for innocent persons to be tricked into an invasion of their privacy.

Consent to a search obtained through trickery is not a valid consent particularly as to personal and private information within our bodies. Such information is entitled to the highest level of Fourth Amendment protection.

Real consent

DNA information contained within our bodies, whether it be blood, urine or saliva has consistently been held to be protected by the Fourth Amendment from unreasonable removal from our bodies by the state.

Not only has such received Fourth Amendment protection, but such actions have been held to require a warrant in the absence of exigent circumstances. With the passage of 17 years, the situation can hardly be described as an exigent-emergency circumstance.

In 1968, the United States Supreme Court said that when police obtained consent to enter a home by lying about the existence of a warrant, such consent was invalid.

While invasion of our protected privacy can be justified by consent, that consent requires real consent. Not consent based on a lie. LeRoy Pernell is a professor at Florida A&M University’s College of Law in Orlando.

The post Lying to get DNA evidence from innocent people should not be tolerated appeared first on Florida Courier.

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Recently Approved Budget Plan Favors Wealthy, Slashes Aid to Low-Income Americans

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts

Published

14 hours ago

March 21, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

The new budget framework approved by Congress may result in sweeping changes to the federal safety net and tax code. The most significant benefits would flow to the highest earners while millions of low-income families face cuts. A new analysis from Yale University’s Budget Lab shows the proposals in the House’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Resolution would lead to a drop in after-tax-and-transfer income for the poorest households while significantly boosting revenue for the wealthiest Americans. Last month, Congress passed its Concurrent Budget Resolution for Fiscal Year 2025 (H. Con. Res. 14), setting revenue and spending targets for the next decade. The resolution outlines $1.5 trillion in gross spending cuts and $4.5 trillion in tax reductions between FY2025 and FY2034, along with $500 billion in unspecified deficit reduction.

Congressional Committees have now been instructed to identify policy changes that align with these goals. Three of the most impactful committees—Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means—have been tasked with proposing major changes. The Agriculture Committee is charged with finding $230 billion in savings, likely through changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Energy and Commerce must deliver $880 billion in savings, likely through Medicaid reductions. Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee must craft tax changes totaling no more than $4.5 trillion in new deficits, most likely through extending provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Although the resolution does not specify precise changes, reports suggest lawmakers are eyeing steep cuts to SNAP and Medicaid benefits while seeking to make permanent tax provisions that primarily benefit high-income individuals and corporations.

To examine the potential real-world impact, Yale’s Budget Lab modeled four policy changes that align with the resolution’s goals:

A 30 percent across-the-board cut in SNAP funding.
A 15 percent cut in Medicaid funding.
Permanent extension of the individual and estate tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Permanent extension of business tax provisions including 100% bonus depreciation, expense of R&D, and relaxed limits on interest deductions.

Yale researchers determined that the combined effect of these policies would reduce the after-tax-and-transfer income of the bottom 20 percent of earners by 5 percent in the calendar year 2026. Households in the middle would see a modest 0.6 percent gain. However, the top five percent of earners would experience a 3 percent increase in their after-tax-and-transfer income.

Moreover, the analysis concluded that more than 100 percent of the net fiscal benefit from these changes would go to households in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. This happens because lower-income groups would lose more in government benefits than they would gain from any tax cuts. At the same time, high-income households would enjoy significant tax reductions with little or no loss in benefits.

“These results indicate a shift in resources away from low-income tax units toward those with higher incomes,” the Budget Lab report states. “In particular, making the TCJA provisions permanent for high earners while reducing spending on SNAP and Medicaid leads to a regressive overall effect.” The report notes that policymakers have floated a range of options to reduce SNAP and Medicaid outlays, such as lowering per-beneficiary benefits or tightening eligibility rules. While the Budget Lab did not assess each proposal individually, the modeling assumes legislation consistent with the resolution’s instructions. “The burden of deficit reduction would fall largely on those least able to bear it,” the report concluded.

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A Threat to Pre-emptive Pardons

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process.

Published

15 hours ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

President Trump is working to undo the traditional presidential pardon powers by questioning the Biden administration’s pre-emptive pardons issued just days before January 20, 2025. President Trump is seeking retribution against the January 6th House Select Committee. The Trump Justice Department has been tasked to find loopholes to overturn the pardons that could lead to legal battles for the Republican and Democratic nine-member committee. Legal scholars and those closely familiar with the pardon process worked with the Biden administration to ensure the preemptive pardons would stand against any retaliatory knocks from the incoming Trump administration. A source close to the Biden administration’s pardons said, in January 2025, “I think pardons are all valid. The power is unreviewable by the courts.”

However, today that same source had a different statement on the nuances of the new Trump pardon attack. That attack places questions about Biden’s use of an autopen for the pardons. The Trump argument is that Biden did not know who was pardoned as he did not sign the documents. Instead, the pardons were allegedly signed by an autopen. The same source close to the pardon issue said this week, “unless he [Trump] can prove Biden didn’t know what was being done in his name. All of this is in uncharted territory. “ Meanwhile, an autopen is used to make automatic or remote signatures. It has been used for decades by public figures and celebrities.

Months before the Biden pardon announcement, those in the Biden White House Counsel’s Office, staff, and the Justice Department were conferring tirelessly around the clock on who to pardon and how. The concern for the preemptive pardons was how to make them irrevocable in an unprecedented process. At one point in the lead-up to the preemptive pardon releases, it was a possibility that the preemptive pardons would not happen because of the complicated nature of that never-before-enacted process. President Trump began the threat of an investigation for the January 6th Select Committee during the Hill proceedings. Trump has threatened members with investigation or jail.

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Reaction to The Education EO

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking a higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college.

Published

16 hours ago

March 21, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

There are plenty of negative reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest Executive Order abolishing the Department of Education. As Democrats call yesterday’s action performative, it would take an act of Congress for the Education Department to close permanently. “This blatantly unconstitutional executive order is just another piece of evidence that Trump has absolutely no respect for the Constitution,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) who is the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. “By dismantling ED, President Trump is implementing his own philosophy on education, which can be summed up in his own words, ‘I love the poorly educated.’ I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action, said Rep. Bobby Scott who is the most senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson chimed in saying “I’m deeply concerned about efforts to shift federal oversight in education back to the states, particularly regarding equity, justice, and fairness. History has shown us what happens when states are left unchecked—Black and poor children are too often denied access to the high-quality education they deserve. In 1979 then President Jimmy Carter signed a law creating the Department of Education. Arne Duncan, former Obama Education Secretary, reminds us that both Democratic and Republican presidents have kept education a non-political issue until now. However, Duncan stressed Republican presidents have contributed greatly to moving education forward in this country.

During a CNN interview this week Duncan said during the Civil War President Abraham “Lincoln created the land grant system” for colleges like Tennessee State University. “President Ford brought in IDEA.” And “Nixon signed Pell Grants into law.” In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush which increased federal oversight of schools through standardized testing. Meanwhile, the new Education EO jeopardizes funding for students seeking higher education. Duncan states, PellGrants are in jeopardy after servicing “6.5 million people” giving them a chance to go to college. Wilson details, “that 40 percent of all college students rely on Pell Grants and student loans.”

Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) says this Trump action “impacts students pursuing higher education and threatens 26 million students across the country, taking billions away from their educational futures. Meanwhile, During the president’s speech in the East Room of the White House Thursday, Trump criticized Baltimore City, and its math test scores with critical words. Governor West Moore, who is opposed to the EO action, said about dismantling the Department of Education, “Leadership means lifting people up, not punching them down.”