In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the police practice of collecting DNA swabs from those who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime, stating that it is the 21st century version of finger printing.

The five justices in the majority ruled that authorities' ability to take DNA samples for people arrested for "serious crimes" and when officers “bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,”does not violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, “taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s D.N.A. is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

"DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of a routine booking procedure," Kennedy added.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion.

Once taken, a person's DNA will forever remain in the system, whether that person is guilty or innocent.

Justice Antonin Scalia joined the more court's more liberal members, Jutices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in dissenting, angrily stating:

"“Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your D.N.A. can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason."

Scalia said this method did in fact violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unwarranted search and seizure, despite strong arguments that DNA samplings will help solve more crimes.

The Supreme Court case arose after police collected DNA from suspected rapist Michael King in Maryland who was arrested on an assault charge in 2009. The DNA samplings linked him back to a 2003 rape case and he was convicted of that crime. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that a state law prohibited DNA collections before a person in convicted.

Read the whole story at NBC News.

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