NY Wins Power to Search DNA Bank for Criminals’ Relatives (1)

New York can expand the use of a DNA database to blood relatives of people who have previously been convicted of a crime after the state’s top justices narrowly overturned a lower court’s ban on the practice.

Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote the opinion for the four-judge majority, saying the state did have the authority to promulgate the familial DNA search regulations.

The state intermediate appellate court ruled last May in favor of the plaintiffs, two men whose brothers have committed felonies and have their DNA in the state DNA Databank—a database that stores genetic information of New Yorkers who ...