WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the police can take DNA samples from people under arrest without a warrant.

In a 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court said DNA is identifying information just like fingerprints and can be collected at the time of an arrest, just as fingerprints are taken by police.

The court said, "taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

"In this respect the use of DNA for identification is no different than matching an arrestee's face to a wanted poster of a previously unidentified suspect; or matching tattoos to known gang symbols to reveal a criminal affiliation; or matching the arrestee 's fingerprints to those recovered from a crime scene," the court said.

The case involves Alonzo King, who was arrested in 2009 on charge of violent crimes. Police took a swab of DNA from his cheek and matched his DNA to an unsolved rape from six years earlier. He pleaded guilty to the 2009 assault and was also convicted of rape. But he sued to have the DNA evidence suppressed, arguing that taking a DNA swab without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.