CJA 354 Criminal Law
Criminal Law Paper
Iesha Gay
Rod Shelton
July 7, 2013
In this paper I am going to take a look at the case state of Maryland v Alonzo King. I will take a look at what accomplice liability is and criminal liability and how they are related to the case of Maryland v King. How different aspects of crime differ from one another and there direct correlation to this case.
In 2009 Alonzo Jay King Jr. was arrested by the Maryland police for first and second degree assault. In the state of Maryland there is an act called the “DNA Act” which gives police the right to collect a suspects DNA. After Maryland police collected Alonzo King’s DNA they entered it into the states database and it immediately came back as a match to an unsolved rape case from 2003. Due to the match Alonzo King was convicted of the 2003 rape. After Mr. King was convicted Maryland’s highest court reversed that conviction, stating that the DNA evidence was not obtained properly during a reasonable search so it was not constitutional under the Fourth Amendment. They stated that King’s rights to privacy were deemed greater than the state of Maryland’s …show more content…
It is being argued that because Maryland’s DNA act gives the police the rights to collect DNA samples from those that have been arrested, but not yet convicted for violent crimes or burglary. Alonzo King wanted to have the DNA evidence suppressed, stating that his arrest for rape was not valid due to unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Mr. King wanted to prove that the DNA Act was unconstitutional and even if it was not unconstitutional that they did not follow the proper procedure when collecting his