POLICING IDENTITY

The most important decision to date on the issue, from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc and splitting eight to six, evinces a basic confusion over the role of identity evidence, blurring a key distinction between identity verification and investigation.2 The conflation of purposes (ascertaining who an individual is and what that individual might have done or will do) is hugely important given the unprecedented legal authority now enjoyed by police to seize individuals for major and minor offenses alike and ongoing government efforts to expand target populations for DNA collection. [...]the Article examines the judicial failure to clarify how identity evidence should be handled when police illegally seize an individual and secure such evidence, a matter Professor Wayne LaFave notes "has caused the courts particular difficulty.