We the jury find your genetics guilty of murder...

Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that New York City will indicting begin indicting the DNA of unknown sexual offenders to circumvent the statute of limitations on these crimes.

Typically, a crime has a statute of limitations of about 10-20 years, and if in that time, the criminal is not caught, the authorities are not able to charge the guilty party with that crime. However, if the criminal is known, and they have enough evidence to get an indictment, it stands forever until the criminal is officially brought in and tried in a court of law. This way, if the criminal leaves the country, they can still charge him later for that crime, as long as he's already been indicted. The statute of limitations is in place for several reasons: people do crazy things when they’re young, and it shouldn’t be possible to convict them in their 50’s for something they did in their 20’s. Furthermore, it makes sure that a crime is prosecuted when the evidence is available and in good condition.
So here's the goofy thing.

Instead of indicting the actual person, New York City will now indict your DNA profile. Now, the dictionary defines an indictment as a formal written statement framed by a prosecuting authority and found by a jury (as a grand jury) charging a person with an offense (source www.m-w.com). A person. The target of an indictment might be a company, though it is most often a person. So how can your DNA be indicted? DNA is not a person, it’s part of who makes you what you are, but you’re more than just your DNA. A dead person is a pile of DNA, but they’re not committing acts of murder. Hair clippings on the floor at your barbershop are DNA, but it’s not involved in criminal activities. DNA didn't commit the offense, the person did. Indicting DNA is like indicting the car driven in a hit-and-run, or the gun used in the murder.

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

But the lunacy of indicting DNA is no the only problem. This raises a whole set of issues: If you’re the actor in a crime, and your DNA gets indicted, could your children be help culpable for your crime? How specific does the DNA match have to be? What if you were at the scene of the crime, but had nothing to do with it, and your DNA's all over the place? Say you've got an incessant drooling problem, and you drip like a Great Dane everywhere you go. If you drip your saliva all over a crime scene, are you going to get put in jail?

How far does this go? Has anyone thought this through?

Honestly, if DNA can be indicted, and otherwise treated as a human, does this suddenly mean a fetus can be declared a person? Or can anything be indicted: my cats, my lamp, my computer?

If the voters of New York really view the statute of limitations as such an onerous burden, they should do away with it, rather than this murky and frightening end-run around the law. Even if the intentions of the city are good, the execution of this law leaves a bad taste in my mouth.