Bill would address sexual assault kits

Idaho could very soon have its first state law addressing the handling of sexual assault evidence kits.

The proposed legislation, sponsored by Rep. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, would create minimum standards for rape kit testing including a timeline to speed up the process, and a tracking and reporting system.

“With no statute

in place, there is room for inconsistent approaches that could impact efficiency and service,” Wintrow told members of the Idaho House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee during a hearing Thursday.

Lawmakers on the committee backed the bill unanimously, sending it to the House floor with a “do-pass” recommendation.

Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, a former Kootenai County deputy prosecuting attorney, sits on the House Judiciary Committee.

“This is going to help make the process easier for victims and justice more attainable,” Malek told The Press, in a phone interview from Boise.

During Thursday’s hearing, Wintrow told the committee the legislation is important because with DNA testing of rape kits, an unknown assailant can be identified, the presence of a known assailant can be confirmed, a suspect can be connected to other cases, a suspect can be discredited or exonerated, and it can affirm the survivor’s account of an attack.

“Rape kit testing sends a message to survivors that their voice matters and we’re going to take this seriously,” Wintrow said.

It sends a strong message to perpetrators as well, she said, because having a law on the books shows the state’s commitment to solving these crimes.

Wintrow was hired in 2000 as the first women’s center director at Boise State University where she developed services to support students who had been sexually assaulted.

“It’s an honor to work on this issue since I have such specific experience and knowledge that lent itself well to work on this bill,” Wintrow said, in a message to The Press.

Wintrow worked with key stakeholders — law enforcement officers, victims’ advocates, prosecutors and the Idaho State Police Forensics Department — to draft the legislation. She brought representatives from some of those groups with her to testify during Thursday’s hearing.

Jennifer Landhuis, director of social change for the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, said there is often concern about false reports of rape, but the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have found the level of false reports is about 8 percent, which is no higher than any other crime.

Because sexual assault victims are often fearful of their perpetrators, of not being believed or that nothing will happen, only 30 percent of victims report the crimes, she said. When they do come forward, and it’s within a certain amount of time, they are asked to participate in a sexual assault forensic exam.

“I encourage you to look beyond the cardboard box that contains the evidence,” Landhuis said to the committee. “Each kit represents a human being, a victim who endured a crime that nobody deserves to endure.”

That victim has endured a long, arduous process to collect that evidence, she said. Cindy Cook, a sexual assault nurse examiner, told the committee the process takes about 2.5 hours.

“We have to ensure kits are not sitting untested on a shelf in a law enforcement agency’s office,” Landhuis said. “This bill addresses the current and future issue of backlogged evidence.”

The issue of untested rape kits is not unique to Idaho. Many large cities and jurisdictions across the nation have backlogs of thousands of untested kits, according to ENDTHEBACKLOG, a program of the Joyful Noise Foundation, a national nonprofit created by Mariska Hargitay, one of the stars of the televion show “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.”

Since January 2010, the Post Falls Police Department has collected 26 rape kits, and 10 were sent to the state lab for testing.

“The rest were victims who did not wish to have the investigation continue, it was determined that the report was false or the offense occurred in another jurisdiction,” said Post Falls Police Capt. Greg McLean.

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office has collected 56 sexual assault kits since 2010, and 16 have been tested.

Lt. Stu Miller said there are many factors that go into deciding whether or not to send a kit for testing.

“According to detectives, they send every kit to the state lab that has any possible chance of collecting evidence of a crime,” Miller said. “We don’t send kits to the lab for testing that have no evidentiary value, such as false allegations or uncooperative victims who decline prosecution. Basically, each case is evaluated on its own merits.”

Coeur d’Alene Police Det. Jared Reneau said 132 rape kits have been admitted into evidence in his agency since January 2010. Of those, 79 have been submitted to the lab for analysis.

Reneau said there are several reasons a kit won’t be sent for testing. The Coeur d’Alene Police Department has around 11 “Jane Doe” kits that have not been tested he said. Those are kits from victims who have undergone a forensic exam and evidence was collected, but for whatever reason, they don’t want to press charges or file a police report. Reneau said they hold those kits, and don’t open an investigation.

Sometimes the prosecutor will decline a case before the kit is sent to the lab, he said.

“If consent is the issue, and not necessarily the act, we wouldn’t necessarily have those kits tested...because they’re both admitting it happened,” Reneau said.

The proposed legislation standardizes the decision of whether a rape evidence kit is sent to the lab. It calls for testing of all rape kits, with two exceptions: when the victim does not want it tested, or when the law enforcement agency determines no crime was committed.

Matthew Gamette, the director of Idaho State Police Forensic Services, told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday that in Idaho, he and others began looking at the issue of untested rape kits in 2013.

They sent a survey out to all law enforcement agencies in 2014 asking how many untested kits each agency had in evidence, and made a push to have the kits submitted to the lab.

“What we found is law enforcement was doing a pretty good job of submitting things in, but they weren’t submittinig one type of case — where identity wasn’t an issue,” Gamette said. “They didn’t feel they needed the DNA science. We provided some education that it would go into the DNA database and could be connected to other crimes.”

The proposed legislation, HB528, will require law enforcement agencies to submit kits for testing within 30 days, and it will give the lab 90 days to complete it.

In order to do that, the state lab will have to hire more analysts, at a cost of $207,000 per year after the first year, when it will be slightly higher to pay for training.