What’s more amusing than a process termed as “Spit and Acquit”? The name of the person administering it today.
Let’s go to my neighbor Orange County, California. The publication Voice of OC explains what “Spit and Acquit” is:
“The DNA collection program, colloquially known as Spit and Acquit, was started by former District Attorney Tony Rackauckus in 2007 and offered misdemeanor defendants a choice – face charges, or pay a small fee and submit your DNA to a countywide database.”
As far as I can tell, the database was used lawfully. A January 2025 report indicated that the database was used over 12,000 times to generate “hits or leads.” Yes, leads. As in “investigative leads.” Not arrest warrants. So no problem there.
But UCI criminology professor emeritus William Thompson was concerned about the potential for unconstitutional arrests, and initiated a lawsuit that was just settled.
“Now, anyone whose DNA was collected or is collected in the future will automatically have their DNA expunged after 15 years for a slate of misdemeanors, including things like altering a license plate, drinking alcohol in public and disobeying direction at a stoplight.
“Other people who commit crimes that make them ineligible for automatic deletion can petition to have their DNA profile removed after 25 years provided they have not reoffended in some other way.”
However, original District Attorney Rackauckus is long gone. This isn’t the U.S. Senate, after all. His replacement, elected in 2018, is…
…drumroll…
Todd Spitzer.
