OC district attorney suspends 'Spit and Acquit' DNA program amid budget cuts

The Orange County District Attorney's office suspended its controversial DNA collection program for misdemeanor defendants in May 2026, bringing a nearly two-decade practice of genetic data-gathering to at least a temporary halt amid persistent constitutional questions and mounting storage costs.

The suspension of the program known informally as "Spit and Acquit" — which held nearly 215,000 genetic profiles as of January 2025 — underscores the fiscal strain on Orange County's criminal justice agencies and may accelerate the resolution of a pending lawsuit challenging the program's constitutionality.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer's office notified staff of the move on the evening of May 21, 2026, when Amanda Maldonado, an executive management assistant at the DA's office, emailed employees under the subject line "Temporary Suspension of the DNA Collections Program." The message, sent on behalf of executive management, stated: "It is with deep regret that we share that, due to a mandatory budget reduction from the County, the program will be temporarily suspended for the upcoming year," according to Voice of OC.

The "Spit and Acquit" program dates to 2007, when then-District Attorney Tony Rackauckus introduced it as a novel prosecutorial tool, Voice of OC reported. Under the arrangement, defendants charged with misdemeanors faced a stark choice: contest the charges in court or pay a fee and submit to a DNA cheek swab entered into a county database. By January 2025 that database contained nearly 215,000 genetic profiles, and authorities used it more than 12,000 times over the program's run to generate investigative leads shared with local police departments.

Budget math drove the suspension. The county spent nearly $1 million in the last fiscal year solely to maintain the DNA storage contract — an agreement set to expire June 30, 2026, Voice of OC reported. Spitzer, who questioned the program while serving as a county supervisor, reversed course after winning election as district attorney in 2018 and became an advocate for the effort; he received at least $4.2 million in county supervisor funding over the past five years to operate it.

Legal pressure compounded the fiscal strain. County lawyers are in settlement negotiations over a pending lawsuit that challenges the program's constitutionality, according to Voice of OC. The DA's office described the move as a temporary suspension and did not rule out resumption, but with the storage contract days from expiring and litigation unresolved, the program's long-term fate remains unclear.

No timeline for a potential resumption has been announced, and DA officials have not publicly addressed whether the program's fiscal or legal obstacles can be overcome.