Search and Seizure – warrantless genital swabs – consent

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Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Criminal

Search and Seizure – warrantless genital swabs – consent

APPEAL from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for Brown County: MARC A. HAMMER, Judge. Affirmed.

Terrence Thomas appeals a judgment convicting him of repeated sexual assault of the same child and an order denying postconviction relief. Thomas argues his trial attorney was ineffective by failing to move to suppress DNA evidence obtained from warrantless swabs of Thomas’s genitals. He asserts the DNA evidence should have been suppressed because the genital swabs did not fall within any recognized exception to the warrant requirement. He also argues that, even if a warrant was not required, the swabs were nevertheless unreasonable because there was no clear indication they would produce evidence that he sexually assaulted the victim, and because they were not performed by a medical professional. Alternatively, Thomas argues the erroneous admission of the DNA evidence entitles him to a new trial in the interest of justice.

DISTRICT III; Brown County; MARC A. HAMMER; Hoover, P.J., Stark, Hruz, JJ.

2014AP000478-CR State v. Terrence L. Thomas

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