North Dakota

Recent / Pending Legislation

Nothing beyond the above.

Arrestees: Yes. Booking Station Rapid Ready.

Qualifying Crimes: Any felony arrest.

Time of Collection: Collected at arrest, at the first court appearance, or at booking into a correctional facility.

Expungement: Yes – by petition to the court where the arrest ended in dismissal, acquittal, or a misdemeanor conviction; where no felony charge was brought within a year; or where no felony conviction resulted.

Statutes / Case Law

NDCC § 31-13-01. DEFINITIONS

§ 31-13-03. INDIVIDUALS TO BE TESTED—COSTS

§ 31-13-07. REMOVAL OF DNA PROFILES FROM DATABASE

Convicted Offenders: Yes.

Qualifying Crimes: Felonies; sexual offenses and attempted sexual offenses; any other offense where the sentencing court finds the person engaged in a nonconsensual sexual act or sexual contact during, in the course of, or as a result of the offense; and any individual in the department’s custody after July 31, 1995.

Time of Collection: At the person’s arrest or appearance, or at booking into a correctional facility.

Expungement: By petition to the court where the conviction was reversed or the case dismissed.

Statutes / Case Law

NDCC § 31-13-01. Definitions

NDCC § 31-13-03. Individuals to be tested—Costs

NDCC § 31-13-07. Removal of DNA profiles from database

State v. Norman, 2003 ND 66 (N.D. 2003) (“The Legislature intended the expanded DNA testing to include individuals in the custody of the department after July 31, 2001, as a result of a conviction for one of the specified offenses.”).

Legislative History

SB 2358 (54th LA, 1995) — Chapter 325 Original enactment — created NDCC Chapter 31-13 and the DNA collection mandate.

This bill created the entire Chapter 31-13 DNA Analysis framework from scratch — § 31-13-03 did not exist before it. The original collection mandate was narrow: courts were required to order DNA collection only from persons convicted of specified sexual offenses under Chapter 12.1-20 (specifically §§ 12.1-20-03, 12.1-20-03.1, 12.1-20-04, 12.1-20-05, 12.1-20-06, and subdivisions of 12.1-20-07 and 12.1-20-11), as well as any offense where the court found at sentencing that the defendant engaged in a nonconsensual sexual act. It also applied retroactively to persons already in Department of Corrections custody after July 31, 1995 for those offenses. The bill established the foundational architecture: the database, the collection process, cost allocation, and use restrictions.

HB 1208 (57th LA, 2001) — Chapter 302 Expanded collection mandate to comply with the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-546).

This was the largest single expansion of § 31-13-03. It was driven by the federal DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-546), which conditioned federal CODIS participation and funding on states expanding their DNA collection laws beyond sex offenses. HB 1208 added an entirely new collection category: any person convicted after July 31, 2001 of a felony offense in:

Chapter 12.1-16 (homicide)

Chapter 12.1-17 (assault and related offenses)

Chapter 12.1-18 (kidnapping and related offenses)

§ 12.1-22-01 (robbery)

Chapter 12.1-27.2 (sexual performance by minors.

The retroactivity provision also required collection from those already in DOC custody after July 31, 2001 for any of these offenses. The exact statutory text, as confirmed by State v. Leppert, reads in part: “The court shall order any person convicted after July 31, 2001, of a felony offense contained in chapter 12.1-16, 12.1-17, or 12.1-18, section 12.1-22-01, or chapter 12.1-27.2 and any person who is in the custody of the department after July 31, 2001, as a result of a conviction for one of these offenses to have a sample of blood or other body fluids taken by the department for DNA law enforcement identification purposes and inclusion in the law enforcement identification data bases.”

HB 1235 (58th LA, 2003) Amended §§ 31-13-03, 31-13-05, and 31-13-07 — relating to the law enforcement DNA database.

When HB 1208 (2001) expanded § 31-13-03’s collection mandate to violent felonies, it created an internal statutory incongruity: § 31-13-05, which governed the authorized purposes of the DNA database, had not been updated to reflect the new categories of offense for which DNA was now collected. State v. Leppert (decided in early 2003) identified this problem directly — the court noted that the database’s stated purposes were still keyed to sexual offenses only, while the collection mandate had grown to include homicide, assault, robbery, and kidnapping. HB 1235 corrected this: it amended § 31-13-05 to align the database’s authorized use provisions with the expanded 2001 collection categories. It likely also made conforming amendments to § 31-13-03 itself to clean up drafting inconsistencies created by the 2001 expansion.

HB 1197 (60th LA, 2007) — Chapter 285 Amended §§ 31-13-03 and 31-13-07 — relating to collection and testing of DNA samples for law enforcement identification purposes.

This bill made the next major expansion: collection was extended to all felony convictions, eliminating the prior limitation to specific felony chapters. Rather than listing particular offense chapters, § 31-13-03 now required DNA collection from any person convicted of any felony. The bill also included a retroactivity provision reaching back to July 31, 2005, requiring collection from persons already in DOC custody as of that date for any felony conviction. This brought North Dakota’s collection law in line with the broader national trend toward universal felony DNA databases and positioned the state for maximum CODIS participation.

HB 1355 (60th LA, 2007) — Chapter 286 Amended § 31-13-03 only — relating to persons subject to DNA testing.

Passed in the same session as HB 1197, this bill moved North Dakota to pre-conviction (arrest-based) DNA collection. It amended § 31-13-03 to require DNA collection from any person arrested or booked for a felony offense — not just upon conviction. This is the most significant structural shift in the statute’s history, moving collection upstream from sentencing to booking. Because implementation required substantial changes to law enforcement procedures, laboratory capacity, and expungement protocols (for those not ultimately convicted), the Legislature built in a delayed effective date of July 31, 2009. This gave agencies roughly two years to prepare.

HB 1389 (62nd LA, 2011) — Chapter 242 Amended §§ 31-13-03, 31-13-04, and 31-13-07; created new tampering offense in Chapter 31-13.

Per its enrolled title, this bill: (1) created a new § 31-13-10 establishing the offense of tampering with a DNA sample — a criminal penalty provision that had not previously existed in Chapter 31-13; and (2) amended §§ 31-13-03, 31-13-04, and 31-13-07 “relating to the collection and testing of DNA samples for law enforcement identification purposes.” The amendments to § 31-13-03 likely tightened chain-of-custody and sample-integrity requirements in the collection mandate — a logical companion to the new tampering offense — and clarified procedural obligations under the arrest-based collection system that had taken effect in 2009. The new tampering offense was a direct integrity safeguard: once arrest-based collection was in place, the Legislature needed a specific penalty for anyone who attempted to substitute or adulterate their sample.

SB 2281 (67th LA, 2021) Amended subsection 5 of § 31-13-03 — relating to DNA sample collection and a tracking system.

Rather than expanding the collection mandate further, this bill addressed a different failure point in the forensic DNA system: rape kit tracking. SB 2281 created a statewide electronic tracking system for sexual assault evidence collection kits, funded by $255,000 in federal funds, and assigned responsibility for the system to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Prior to this bill, North Dakota had no centralized system to track whether rape kits had been submitted to labs, tested, or had results uploaded to CODIS — meaning evidence collected under § 31-13-03 could go untested for years without anyone being accountable for its status. The bill also amended § 31-13-03 in connection with these tracking requirements.

No program or law found.

No program or law identified.

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No program or law identified.