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The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that, even though police violated a murder suspect’s constitutional rights by analyzing his stored blood sample without a warrant, the DNA evidence can still be used against him because of an exception in search and seizure law.
The unanimous decision provides new guidance on genetic privacy rights while allowing prosecutors to proceed with their case against Ian Mitcham, who is charged with the 2015 murder of Allison Feldman in Scottsdale. Feldman had been sexually assaulted in her home near Loop 101 and Pima Road and died of blunt force trauma to the head.
The case began when Scottsdale police investigating Feldman’s murder analyzed blood that had been taken from Mitcham during a DUI arrest a month before the 31-year-old burn and trauma specialist was killed.
That analysis wasn’t performed until 2018, after detectives sought to identify family members of the unknown man who left DNA at the murder scene, which found that Mitcham’s incarcerated brother was either a sibling or parent of the unknown man. Police then turned their investigation to Mitcham and realized they still had his blood samples.
Her case was the first in Arizona where familial DNA was used to help track down a suspect.
Although Mitcham had consented to the blood draw for alcohol testing and had agreed that any unused blood would be destroyed after 90 days, police never did that. In 2018, they extracted his DNA profile without obtaining a new warrant and matched it to evidence from the murder scene.
“Although Mitcham lost his possessory rights to the second vial of blood, he did not lose all of his privacy rights in that blood,” Chief Justice Ann Timmer wrote for the court.
The court held that creating a DNA profile constitutes a separate search requiring its own warrant or exception to warrant requirements, even when police legally possess the biological sample. Their failure to do so violated Mitcham’s Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure.However, the justices ruled the evidence admissible under the “inevitable discovery” doctrine because Mitcham’s later felony convictions would have required him to provide a DNA sample anyway under Arizona law.
The ruling requires law enforcement to obtain warrants before conducting new analyses on stored biological samples but provides flexibility through established exceptions to warrant requirements.
“The key inquiry is whether verifiable facts exist from which the court can find…that the evidence would have been lawfully discovered despite the illegal search and independent of it,” Timmer wrote.
Mitcham was indicted in 2018 for first-degree murder, second-degree burglary and sexual assault in Feldman’s death. The trial court initially suppressed the DNA evidence, but Tuesday’s ruling overturns that decision and allows prosecutors to use it.
The ruling comes as courts nationwide grapple with privacy implications of advancing DNA technology and growing genetic databases. The Arizona Supreme Court’s analysis provides a framework for balancing individual privacy rights with law enforcement needs as these technologies continue to evolve.
The case now returns to Maricopa Superior Court for further proceedings. Mitcham remains in custody.
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