The chain of custody is one of the first elements a good defense attorney will scrutinize. If he or she can prove a break in the chain of custody, the evidence is not admissible at trial July 18, 2022 There is a sexual assault taking place right now. Every 68 seconds, someone in America is sexually assaulted. More than 97% of perpetrators get off s...

Currently, Missouri has no way of keeping track of processed sexual assault collection kits. A proposed bill hopes to fix that February 12, 2018 Currently, Missouri has no way of keeping track of processed sexual assault collection kits. A proposed bill hopes to fix that. During a hearing Monday afternoon, members of the public spoke in favor of a ...

Idaho became the first state to fully implement a state-wide sexual assault kit tracking system. January 23, 2018 TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) In January of 2017, Idaho became the first state to fully implement a state-wide sexual assault kit tracking system. The Idaho Sexual Assault Kit Tracking System released the 2017 audit with numbers and sta...

Some of those sexual assault kits date back nearly 40 years. October 1, 2107 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - More than 1,000 potentially untested sexual assault kits are on an evidence room shelf here in Kern County. Some of those sexual assault kits date back nearly 40 years. 23ABC's I-Team investigated why there are so many that are poteniatlly untested an...

Senate Bill 349 prevents that from happening by prohibiting police from destroying rape kits within 20 years of collection Enter Article DATE HERE This year Maryland lawmakers focused on sexual assault. The General Assembly approved several new pieces of legislation. One of those laws says police must retain rape kits for 20 years, another rec...

The Houston Forensic Science Center took over the police department's forensic operations in 2014 and said it eliminated a backlog dating to the 1980s that it inherited from the police department. October 1, 2017 Current and former Houston officials are facing a class action lawsuit from sexual assault victims who said the delay in testing their ra...

Enter Headline here May 18, 2017 Good news! For the third consecutive year, Congress has fully funded the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant program. In the FY17 spending bill signed into law earlier this month, Congress allocated $45 million for SAKI, keeping intact this much-needed funding for communities to test backlogged kits, investig...

Gov. Gary Herbert signed House Bill 200 on March 22, which now requires local law enforcement agencies to submit sexual assault kits to state forensic labs for testing within 30 days of retrieval. March 29, 2017 Some advocates for sexual assault victims are praising Utah's new legislation regarding the processing of rape kits. Gov. Gary Herber...

By Minnesota law, sexual assault survivors don't have to decide whether they want to go to police when they arrive at a hospital to be examined.The reasoning: It's hard enough to decide, in those traumatic hours, to even come in for an exam. February 18, 2017 By Minnesota law, sexual assault survivors don't have to decide whether they want to go to...

About 200 past and current cases could be affected, Mitchell said during a news conference Monday afternoon February 6, 2017 Temple police Detective Jason Jordan was suspended indefinitely Monday after an internal investigation that started in September into his processing, storage, documented return and release of evidence and recovered property i...

The AG says about 1,700 kits are on the way to be tested JANUARY 17, 2017 LAS VEGAS (KTNV) - A backlog in processing sexual assault test kits was a hot topic in the last election cycle. So what's the status now? Nevada had about 8,000 untested sexual assault kits sitting on the shelf last year.  Now, the out-of-state lab we're using to help ca...

The room, which is 14,000 square feet, is holding approximately 15,000 pieces of evidence, 46 percent of capacity, according to the Houston Police Department. October 20, 2016 HOUSTON - Interim Houston Police Chief Martha Montalvo could not provide a time estimate on Thursday of how long it would take to assess how much evidence was contaminated, i...

Rape kits—more than 100,000 of them, as of 2014—have often languished for years in police warehouses and crime labs, going untested due to a lack of funds and, some argue, contempt for victims. October 7, 2016 President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that guarantees s...