Judge to probe use of Taser to get DNA
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Ryan S. Smith refused a judge’s order last fall to give a DNA sample, insisting to police that he didn’t care what court papers said.“You are gonna have to Taser me if you want my DNA,” an officer reported Smith saying.
So police did just that, jolting Smith with electricity before swabbing the inside of his mouth.
Now the judge in the case wants to know why.
“This isn’t pretty,” Niagara County Court Judge Sara Sheldon Sperazza told lawyers involved in the case during a recent court appearance. “I’m fearful of how he’s been treated.”
Sperazza ordered several Niagara Falls police officers and an assistant district attorney to appear in her court Monday and provide sworn testimony to explain how Smith came to be shocked by a Taser on Sept. 29, 2008.
According to police records obtained by The Buffalo News, officers involved had been told by superiors to “use any means necessary” to collect the sample.
Criminal and civil attorneys say that Smith had a constitutional right to refuse the DNA request.
The judge could have ordered Smith jailed until he gave the sample, the lawyers said, but police and prosecutors had no legal authority to force him to provide one.
Follow link for the rest of the story By Nancy A. Fischer and Scott Scanlon NEWS NIAGARA REPORTERS at The Buffalo News.
