橙县检察官办公室就DNA采集计划达成和解：五年诉讼落幕 轻罪被告可申请删除样本
位于加州橙县的 Santa Ana——橙县检察官办公室（Orange County District Attorney's Office）与纳税人原告、教授 William Thompson 10月16日发表联合声明，宣布就 Thompson 诉 Spitzer 一案达成和解，案件涉及该办公室的 DNA 采集计划。和解条款全文公开。
联合声明列出的和解要点包括五项：修改检察官在向轻罪被告提出认罪协商并要求提供 DNA 样本时的适用程序；从系统中移除部分 DNA 样本；建立轻罪被告申请删除其 DNA 样本的程序；澄清利用检察官 DNA 数据库进行家族性检索的若干规则；向公众增加披露该 DNA 系统运作情况。
据《Daily Journal》对和解文本的报道，仅涉及市政法规违规、轻微违规或少年违法行为的人将被排除在该数据库之外；所列较轻罪行的样本在15年后自动删除、样本在六个月内销毁；和解附件列出较早采集的1,323条与后来采集的897条记录。被告方不承认有不当行为，和解不涉及退款、只面向未来执行。
该案为纳税人诉讼，2021年提起，至今约五年。Thompson 由 O'Melveny 律师事务所与加州大学 Irvine 法学院 Defending Democracy Clinic 代理，其共同律师 Paul Hoffman 表示，和解是隐私权方面向前迈出的一步，受影响者如今有了把自己资料移出系统的办法。橙县检察官 Todd Spitzer 一方由县法律顾问办公室代理。
Orange County DA Settles DNA Collection Lawsuit: Misdemeanants Gain an Expungement Path
SANTA ANA, California — The Orange County District Attorney's Office and taxpayer plaintiff Professor William Thompson announced on October 16 the settlement of Thompson v. Spitzer, a case concerning the office's DNA collection program, in a joint press release. The terms of the settlement agreement are public.
The main provisions include: modifications of the procedures applicable to plea offers to misdemeanants when the district attorney seeks a DNA sample; removal of some DNA samples from the system; creation of a procedure for misdemeanants to obtain expungement of their samples; clarification of aspects of familial searching using the database; and additional public disclosures about how the DNA system operates.
According to the Daily Journal's account of the agreement, people charged only with municipal code violations, infractions or juvenile offenses are excluded from the database; profiles tied only to listed lower-level offenses will be expunged after 15 years, with samples destroyed within six months; and two exhibits list 1,323 covered earlier entries and 897 collected later. The defendants deny wrongdoing; the agreement provides no refunds and applies prospectively.
The taxpayer lawsuit was filed in 2021. Thompson was represented by O'Melveny and the Defending Democracy Clinic at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law; Paul Hoffman, the clinic's director, said the settlement is a step forward for privacy rights and gives people a way to get their material out of the system. District Attorney Todd Spitzer was represented by the County Counsel's Office.
来源：GSM·美国（原文链接）
图片来源：图：位于 Santa Ana 的橙县旧法院大楼（资料图，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 3.0）
