Alfaro

Eight women who have been sentenced to death in state criminal proceedings (hereafter plaintiffs) challenge the implementation of the DNA and Forensic Identification Data Base and Data Bank Act of 1998 (hereafter the Act). (Pen. Code, § 295 et seq.; further section references are to this code unless otherwise specified.) Among other things, the Act states that any person who is convicted of a specified crime must “provide two specimens of blood, a saliva sample, right thumbprints, and a full palm print impression of each hand for law enforcement identification analysis.” (§ 296, subd. (a)(1).) The Act further provides that the California Department of Justice sljall (1) serve as a repository for those items, (2) perform a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) analysis and any other forensic identification of them, and (3) “store, compile, correlate, compare, maintain, and use DNA and forensic identification profiles and records” (§ 295.1, subds. (a), (c)) for use as an “effective law enforcement tool” in the “expeditious detection and prosecution of individuals responsible for sex offenses and other violent crimes, the exclusion of suspects who are being investigated for these…