Globe Editorial - from the Globe and Mail
While a DNA sweep of a community may be justified in exceptional circumstances, police should seek a judge’s permission before beginning. No such permission has been sought in an Ontario case in which the provincial police, seeking the killer of the Orangeville nurse Sonia Varaschin, appear to feel no need to communicate with the public about how many people they will attempt to swab for DNA, or what possible connection these people might have to the crime. The OPP's approach is so opaque it is impossible for the public to know whether this search is justified. Trust us, they say, while we step around, or on, the civil liberties of an unknown number of people.
In some cases, a DNA sweep has helped find a dangerous killer. The Holly Jones case in Toronto in 2003 was one such case. Holly was a 10-year-old who disappeared on a short walk near her home. Stumped after 10 days, the police canvassed 300 homes for DNA. The killer was one of just a handful who refused the police request. (When police came to his door, they alertly noticed mats that could have produced fibres found on Holly's body.)
That search was precisely targeted, because it occurred in a neighbourhood cut off on three sides by railway tracks. Holly could not have disappeared anywhere else. And the DNA canvass met a threshold of necessity – a deadly crime, a child-killer on the loose, little apparent progress in the investigation.
But there have been other sweeps in Canada, the United States and Europe, that have taken in thousands of people and have failed. A smaller sweep was done last fall by the RCMP of 100 taxi drivers in Prince George, B.C., in an investigation of murders of women along the so-called highway of tears. The drivers were reportedly blindsided during interviews when the DNA request was sprung on them. They were apparently told they would be deemed suspects if they refused to comply. This makes a mockery of the supposed voluntariness or of informed consent. All complied. No arrests have followed.
The OPP, in the Varaschin case, have prepared a “consent” form for people to sign, but Constable Peter Leon says it is an “internal document” and he would not show it to The Globe. Nor would the OPP say how many people will be canvassed for their DNA, or where these people will be found, only that they knew Ms. Varaschin “directly or indirectly,” whatever that means. Refusing the police request, Const. Leon said, “is their right; however, that will form part of the investigative process to determine why the individual did refuse.” The voluntariness in this approach is a sham, as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has justifiably complained.
The coercion may be legitimate – a killer is loose somewhere, and some DNA sweeps have been useful. But police should be obliged to seek court permission before conducting such invasive searches.
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