## Facts

- Thomas Cameron Kincade was convicted in federal court of bank robbery and, after serving his prison term, was placed on supervised release.
- The DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 required certain convicted federal offenders who were incarcerated or on conditional release to provide a biological sample for DNA analysis.
- Under federal collection practices described by the court, offenders subject to the statute were effectively required to submit to a compulsory blood draw for DNA profiling.
- Kincade refused to provide the blood sample when ordered to do so as a condition of supervised release.
- The district court treated the refusal as a violation of supervised release, revoked release, and imposed an additional four-month prison term.
- A Ninth Circuit panel initially found the statute unconstitutional as applied, but that decision was vacated upon rehearing en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fourth Amendment permits compulsory extraction of a blood sample and DNA profiling from a supervised-release offender under the federal DNA statute without individualized suspicion of new criminal activity.
2. Whether the search should be evaluated under the “special needs” doctrine or under general Fourth Amendment reasonableness using a totality-of-the-circumstances balancing test.

## Decision

- The en banc Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- The court held that compulsory blood sampling and DNA profiling of Kincade under the statute was a reasonable search under the Fourth Amendment.
- The court upheld revocation of supervised release and the additional four-month sentence based on Kincade’s refusal to provide the sample.
- The plurality declined to rest the holding on “special needs,” applying a general reasonableness balancing analysis instead.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourth Amendment’s touchstone is reasonableness; individualized suspicion is not required in every context.
- Persons on supervised release have substantially diminished expectations of privacy as part of a conditional liberty status within the criminal sentence.
- A compelled blood draw for DNA identification purposes is a limited physical intrusion, and the resulting profile was treated as identifying information comparable to fingerprints when restricted to lawfully authorized uses.
- In assessing reasonableness, courts balance (a) the individual’s reduced privacy interests as a convicted, conditionally released offender against (b) governmental interests including accurate identification, solving crimes, deterrence, and administrative efficiency, along with statutory safeguards limiting use and punishing misuse.

## Conclusion

The en banc court held that requiring a supervised-release offender to submit to a compulsory blood draw for DNA profiling under the federal DNA statute is a reasonable, suspicionless search under the Fourth Amendment, and it affirmed revocation and additional imprisonment for refusing to comply.


United States v. Kincade, 379 F.3d 813 (9th Cir. 2004) (en banc)