Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 122, No. 133 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG DEAD AT 89 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The next time a flight attendant reminds you there’s no smoking or you witness a teenager getting carded at a liquor store, think of Frank Lautenberg. The liberal Democratic senator from ...
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June 4, 2013
Court: Police can get DNA from arrestees
TUESDAY
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for police to take a DNA swab from anyone they arrest for a serious crime, endorsing a practice now followed by more than half the states as well as the federal government. The justices differed strikingly on how big a step that was. “Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority. The ruling backed a Maryland law allowing DNA swabbing of people arrested for serious crimes. But the four dissenting justices said the court was allowing a major change in police powers, with conserva-
tive Justice Antonin Scalia predicting the limitation to “serious” crimes would not last. “Make no mistake about it: Because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom. “This will solve some extra crimes, to be sure. But so would taking your DNA when you fly on an airplane — surely the TSA must know the ‘identity’ of the flying public. For that matter, so would taking your children’s DNA when they start public school.” Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler agreed that there’s nothing stopping his state from expanding DNA collection from those arrested See DNA, Page A3
AP Photo
In this April 14, 2011, file photo, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Change in weather could intensify NM fire
Nature: beautiful and terrifying
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Man found shot • NMMI, alumni board face nasty divorce • And they’re off! Three lucky shoppers dash ... • Accident on Country Club • Goddard’s Aston, Gomez win silver medals
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
JASON KIDD RETIRING AFTER 19 SEASONS NEW YORK (AP) — Jason Kidd became one of the best by making others better. He turned around a longtime-losing franchise, guided another to a ...
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TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Roberta Anne Barbour Willis • William S. Marshall • Thelma Stuart
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HIGH .104˚ LOW ....68˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B6 COMICS.................B4 ENTERTAINMENT.....B6 FINANCIAL .............B5 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 NATION .................A6 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
INDEX
Lightning streaks through the night skies over Roswell as thunderstorms bring much needed rain to the area, Sunday.
PECOS (AP) — More than 900 firefighters were racing against increasing winds and dropping humidity levels Monday as they fought to contain two wildfires raging in the northern New Mexico mountains. In the Santa Fe National Forest, the Tres Lagunas blaze had bur ned more than 12 1⁄2 square miles by midday Monday, and firefighters were working to protect a group of homes in the Holy Ghost Canyon and prevent the fire from spreading east where it could endanger a river watershed that supplies the city of Las Vegas. Some 140 homes, mostly
The head of the new IRS says Governor: No FBI taxpayers no longer trust agency probe of racetrack lease
WASHINGTON (AP) — His agency under relentless fire, the new head of the Internal Revenue Service acknowledged to Congress on Monday that American taxpayers no longer trust the IRS amid a growing number of scandals — from the targeting of conservative political groups to lavish spending on employee conferences. But Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel declared he was “committed to restoring that trust.” He said he has installed new leadership at the agency and is conducting a thorough review of what went wrong See IRS, Page A3
AP Photo
Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, left, accompanied by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, testifies on Capitol Hill, Monday.
See NM FIRES, Page A3
SANTA FE (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said Monday she was confident there’s no federal investigation of her administration’s handling of a lease for a horse-racing track and casino on state land in Albuquerque. Martinez made the comments when asked about the FBI recently questioning her former campaign finance director, Andrea Goff. Goff said in a statement over the weekend she had answered FBI questions related to the Downs at Albuquerque and other matters. She provided no details. However, Goff said “none of the questions were related to recent investigation and indictment” of the governor’s former campaign manager, Jamie Estrada. He was charged last week with illegally intercepting email sent to the governor’s campaign computer system and lying to federal investigators. One of the charges involves an email sent by Goff to the governor and others.
See TRACK, Page A3
Quickly-spreading fire and locked doors kill 119 at China poultry plant BEIJING (AP) — A swiftmoving fire trapped panicked workers inside a poultry slaughterhouse in northeastern China that had only a single open exit, killing at least 119 people in one of the country’s worst industrial disasters in years. Survivors described workers, mostly women, struggling through smoke and flames to reach doors that turned out to be locked or blocked. One worker, 39-year-old Guo Yan, said the emer-
gency exit at her workstation could not be opened and she was knocked to the ground in the crush of workers searching for a way to escape the fire Monday. “I could only crawl desperately forward,” Guo was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. “I worked alongside an old lady and a young girl, but I don’t know if they survived or not.” The accident highlights the high human costs of China’s lax industrial safety
standards, which continue to endanger workers despite recent improvements in the country’s work safety record. It also comes amid growing international concern over factory safety across Asia following the collapse in April of a garment factory building in Bangladesh where more than 1,100 people died. Besides the dead, dozens were injured in the blaze in Jilin province’s Mishazi township, which appeared to have been sparked by
three early morning explosions, Xinhua said. The provincial fire department attributed the blasts to an ammonia leak. The chemical is kept pressurized as part of the cooling system in meat processing plants. It was one of China’s worst recent industrial disasters, with the death toll the highest since a September 2008 mining cave-in that claimed 281 lives. State broadcaster CCTV quoted workers as saying the fire broke out during a
shift change when about 350 workers were at the plant, owned by Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co. Some employees raised the alarm shortly after the shift began at 6 a.m., and then the lights went out, causing panic as workers scrambled to find an exit, 44-year-old Wang Fengya told Xinhua. “When I finally ran out and looked back at the plant, I saw high flames,” See CHINA, Page A3