Maryland’s top law enforcement officials are pushing back against a recent Court of Appeals decision that prohibits DNA collection from suspects charged — but not yet convicted — of violent crimes, saying the ruling will allow dangerous criminals to go undetected by authorities.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and police chiefs and prosecutors from the D.C. suburbs to Baltimore County are urging the state’s attorney general to challenge last week’s Alonzo Jay King Jr. v. State of Maryland decision, which found that swabbing criminal suspects for DNA samples after they are charged is a violation of the suspects’ constitutional rights.

The ruling, police and prosecutors say, could jeopardize the convictions of 34 robbers, burglars and rapists whose genetic samples were taken after they were charged in separate cases. They also said it will hamper detectives’ ability to solve cold cases.

“It really sets Maryland back in the crime fight,” said Col. Marcus L. Brown, superintendent of the Maryland State Police.

The case puts Maryland at the center of a brewing national debate that raises the age-old question of how to balance privacy rights and public safety. Federal and state courts across the country have issued mixed opinions on when DNA collection is legal. The governor’s office says 26 states have legislation similar to Maryland’s.

The issue seems destined, legal experts say, to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s like another precinct reporting,” said David H. Kaye, a Penn State University law professor who has tracked similar cases nationwide. “We don’t know what the final outcome of this is going to be, but now there’s another election return in.”

State authorities and officials in Prince George’s, Montgomery and Baltimore counties said they plan to stop collecting DNA from charged suspects while they await further court action. They said they are urging Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to apply for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping it will hear and overturn the state court’s ruling.

David Paulson, a Gansler spokesman, said attorneys in his office were still studying the opinion and surveying the national legal landscape. He said the attorneys “strongly agree” with a dissenting opinion in the Maryland case and are “strongly considering an appeal.”

In Virginia, law enforcement officials take DNA samples after arrest in violent felonies and burglaries, and in the District, officials take samples after conviction, authorities said.

Maryland’s DNA bill was a leading priority for O’Malley during the 2008 legislative session, helping him to bolster the tough-on-crime credentials he earned during his days as Baltimore’s mayor.

The bill that emerged was the product of a compromise between O’Malley and members of the Legislative Black Caucus, who argued that the governor’s original proposal was overreaching. One African American senator said the bill attempted “to use technology to ensnare people.”

O’Malley has since highlighted the number of “hits” generated by the expanded database. He is among those urging Gansler to appeal the court ruling, saying in a statement that the concept is “simple”: “We take more criminals off the streets more quickly and put them in jail for a longer period of time so that they cannot murder, rape or harm other citizens among us.”