In re the Welfare of M.L.M.

I respectfully dissent. M.L.M. was adjudicated delinquent for the purpose of rehabilitation. It is a disposition at the other end of the harmlessness scale from a sentence for a felony conviction. The collection and retention of the biological specimen for DNA implicate strong privacy interests apart from those intruded upon by the collection of the specimen, amount to full-scale personal DNA searches because of the potential for exposure of exceptionally private information contained in the DNA, and operate as a permanent burden on privacy. I would conclude that the State’s interest in…