[continued from previous message]   
      
   Debbie Smith of Williamsburg, Va., is one of thousands whose cases were solved   
   by DNA analysis. After a masked man invaded her home in 1989 and raped her —   
   threatening to come back and kill her if she told anyone — she lived in   
   constant fear of his    
   return for more than six years.   
      
   Smith remembers the day she was notified that a DNA match identified her   
   attacker. He was already behind bars in Maryland for another crime. "It was   
   the first time in those 6½ years that I took a deliberate breath. I wanted to   
   breathe. I wanted to live."   
      
   The inconsistent analysis of rape kits persists even as comprehensive testing   
   in some cities — including New York, Cleveland and Detroit — has   
   demonstrated the power of the previously unused evidence to identify unknown   
   assailants, confirm the    
   accounts of sexual assault survivors, and exonerate wrongly accused suspects.   
      
   The results showed the discretion investigating officers have over whether to   
   test rape kits has often been misused, said Sarah Haacke Byrd, managing   
   director of the Joyful Heart Foundation, a group pushing for testing of all   
   kits tied to a reported    
   sexual assault.   
      
   "Time and time again, we have seen that law enforcement frequently disbelieves   
   victims when they're seeking help from law enforcement," she said. Mandatory   
   testing "takes discretion out of the hands of law enforcement."   
      
   In the course of this investigation, the questions from local and national   
   journalists started prompting change, even before publication. State agencies   
   and local police that didn't know how many untested rape kits they held   
   started counting because of    
   reporters' questions and open records requests. Those new audits alone found   
   more than 2,000 kits containing untested evidence. Several agencies decided,   
   based on reporters' inquiries, to send some or all of their untested rape kits   
   to crime labs. In    
   South Carolina, told of the findings, legislative leaders began pursuing   
   statewide standards defining when police should test rape evidence.   
      
   Yet for uncounted thousands more rape survivors, the evidence remains   
   untested, in storage.   
      
   It took more than a decade for Michael J. Brown to face justice for the 1993   
   rape of a school-aged girl at a New York City apartment complex.   
      
   On Aug. 6, 1993, Brown followed the girl inside a Queens apartment building   
   where she was visiting a friend. He placed his hand over her mouth and   
   abducted her, taking her to the rooftop, where he raped her and knocked her   
   unconscious with a brick,    
   according to court records.   
      
   The victim was taken to a local hospital, where she was interviewed by police   
   and a rape kit was prepared. Then, for nine years, that evidence sat in a   
   freezer among a trove of 16,000 untested rape kits held by the New York City   
   Police Department.   
      
   In prior decades, the evidence had little value unless new leads emerged. But   
   DNA technology advanced and state and federal governments built offender   
   databases. Police and policymakers saw value in analyzing the evidence.   
      
   In the late 1990s, NYPD spent $12 million to send every kit to a private lab   
   for analysis. About 2,000 matched DNA in offender databases — "cold hits" as   
   police call them. One of the matches: Michael Brown.   
      
   His DNA had been entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)   
   database after an unrelated crime in Maryland. The DNA match led to his   
   indictment in 2003 for the New York girl's rape. He was convicted in 2005.   
      
   Other cities and several states followed New York's example and now send all   
   rape kits for testing. New laws and changing attitudes in some jurisdictions   
   have led to CODIS matches resulting in thousands of new investigations and   
   hundreds of indictments †  
   ” many involving serial offenders tied to sex crimes in different parts of the   
   country.   
      
   Testing by Cleveland-area prosecutors linked more than 200 alleged serial   
   rapists to 600 assaults. Statewide, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine's effort   
   to collect and test sexual assault kits has resulted in at least 2,285 CODIS   
   hits so far.   
      
   In Houston, analysis of about 6,600 untested rape kits resulted in about 850   
   matches, 29 prosecutions and six convictions.   
      
   And, since the Colorado Bureau of Investigation began requiring police   
   statewide to submit sexual assault kits for testing last year, more than 150   
   matches have been found.   
      
   Despite those successes, many police agencies haven't changed their policies.   
      
   In New York state, law enforcement agencies outside of New York City are under   
   no legal requirement to test rape evidence. No state law exists requiring   
   agencies to track how many untested kits are stored in their evidence rooms.   
      
   New York is one of 44 states with no law stipulating when police should test   
   rape kits and 34 states that haven't conducted a statewide inventory.   
      
   "We need to have a full accounting for the state of what's left, what hasn't   
   been tested, why it hasn't been tested and just clear it up," said New York   
   State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat, who has introduced   
   legislation requiring an    
   inventory. The bill has yet to make it out of committee.   
      
   Interviews with law enforcement officials, and a review of police records   
   obtained by USA TODAY, reveal sexual-assault-kit testing is often arbitrary   
   and inconsistent among law enforcement agencies — and even within agencies.   
      
   In Jackson, Tenn., for example, notations in evidence records show   
   contradictory reasons as to why rape kits were not tested. In some cases, the   
   Jackson Police Department did not test evidence because the suspect's identity   
   was already known, records    
   show. In 13 other cases since 1998, records show police decided not to test   
   kits because there was "no suspect" or "no known suspect," even though testing   
   the kits could help identify a suspect.   
      
   Another untested sexual assault kit held by the Jackson Police Department is   
   from a 2005 case where a woman was found under a car and told police in two   
   separate interviews she was raped after using drugs with a man in a hotel,   
   according to case records.   
      
   "She asked (him to) stop but he continued to have sexual intercourse with   
   her," the investigator wrote in one report. But the investigator's notes from   
   a third interview days later indicate "she did not remember what had happened"   
   and the sex was    
   voluntary. The case was closed. The sexual assault kit had not been tested as   
   of last month.   
      
   "That should have been investigated further and I feel confident that it would   
   be now," Jackson Police Capt. Mike Holt said of the case, noting changes over   
   the past decade in how police interact with victims.   
      
   Law enforcement officials said the most common reason kits are not tested is   
   there is not a prosecutable case, usually due to a lack of cooperation from   
   victims.   
      
   Perceived lack of cooperation from a victim is not a valid reason to jettison   
   forensic evidence, said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National   
   Crime Victims Center, a Washington-based non-profit. Some survivors may fear   
   retaliation if they press    
   charges.   
      
   "The victim might not decide that they want to go forward with the case, but   
   they might decide later on that they do," Fernandez said. "Or, if there's   
   enough circumstantial evidence, including the kit, a jurisdiction could decide   
   to go forward without    
   the victim."   
      
   Some government officials and researchers have faulted police for a   
   predisposition to doubt survivors' stories.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)