It's no great secret that when a person is arrested they'll be fingerprinted as part of the booking process; in the past decade, many California jails have also started to take a DNA swab.

The idea behind that was simple:  cross check the defendants DNA against a national database to determine whether their genetic fingerprinted tied them to a prior crime.   In some cases, the practice has helped law enforcement officials solve years-old cold cases.

But the practice may have found itself coming to a screeching halt.  Last week, a CA Court of Appeals found that taking a DNA sample from …