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Who cares
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Sponsors
2 Co-sponsors
History
- Approval memo.21
- Signed chap.500
- Delivered to governor
- Returned to senate
- Passed assembly
- Ordered to third reading rules cal.502
- Substituted for A10067A
- Referred to ways and means
- Delivered to assembly
- Passed senateVote 62–0
- Ordered to third reading cal.1891
- Referred to rules
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Provides for the processing of and maintenance of sexual offense evidence kits
Assembly Floor Calendar · Sponsor Aravella Simotas
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the executive law, in relation to the processing and maintenance of sexual offense evidence kits
Purpose
To ensure that sexual offense evidence (rape kits) taken from victims are transferred to forensic labs and processed and entered in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) in a timely manner in order to match DNA against other data banks. The bill also ensures rape kits are tracked from police agency to labs and that reports are provided to DCJS on a quarterly basis.
Summary of provisions
Section 1 of the bill adds a new section to the executive law directing that all sexual offense evidence kits collected and surrendered to police agencies shall be submitted to a forensic laboratory within 10 days of receipt and the forensic lab shall process the evidence received and communicate the results to the submitting agency and the local DA, within 90 days of receipt. Evidence collected prior to the effective date of this section shall be submitted to labs within 180 days of the effective date and such labs shall process such evidence within 120 days of receipt. The bill directs forensic laboratories and police agencies to report to the division of criminal justice services quarterly on the number of kits received, tested and returned to law enforcement agencies. that a secure transport of sexual offense evidence be established in order to reduce duplication and costs associated with each police agency maintaining the chain of custody of evidence while transporting such evidence in a timely manner. Finally, the bill directs the division to ensure that all agencies engaged in a law enforcement function in the satte and all forensic laboratories are educated and aware of the provisions of this section.
Read the full memo (816 words)
Section 2 of the bill provides an effective date.
Justification
Unlike many states, New York does not require evidence collected from rape victims to be processed in a timely manner so that this information can be included in federal DNA database CODIS to help resolve open cases and make the important links that only DNA can. Victims that undergo the process of submitting sexual offense evidence should have the peace of mind that this evidence will in fact be processed. Additionally, the state does not have a mechanism to track rape kit evidence, so we have no idea how many unprocessed kits there are around the state. However, recent reports suggest that many precincts, some more than others, continue to have unprocessed kits on their shelves. These unprocessed kits may contain valuable information that once entered into the DNA database may help solve unsolved crimes and exonerate the innocent.
This legislation provides a mechanism to ensure all rape kits are processed and tracked by requiring specific time frames for the transmittal and processing of sexual offensive evidence collected and surrendered to police agencies. It provides a longer time frame for testing rape kits received prior to the new requirements to ensure resolving any backlog does not interfere with cases requiring priority processing. The 2016-17 adopted state budget included funding to assist with the timely testing, transport and reporting, and assures local law enforcement is not burdened with unfunded mandates.
New York State is a national leader. We do not have a statute of limitations for the most serious sexual assaults, we have a long standing process to ensure hospitals and clinics are equipped to collect evidence, and we require DNA samples be given upon all felony and most misdemeanor convictions, meaning DNA collected in New York is routinely matched against DNA in the federal data bank. There has been a national effort to clean up backlogs of unprocessed rape kits. In 2003 NYC received $2.5 million from the Federal DNA Backlog Reduction Program to test a backlog of approximately 17,000 rape kits resulting in the City's rape arrest record going up significantly. As a result New York City does not have a backlog of untested kits. While this was a considerable investment in the City, we have no reliable data on how many unprocessed rape kits remain in New York State as a whole. Many other states are making this commitment, and in 2014 District Attorney Cy Vance used $38 million in settlement money to help 32 jurisdictions and 20 states clean up their backlogs. In 2015, New York took new bold measures enshrining the "enough is enough" campaign against sexual assault on college campuses. This legislation is the next step in ensuring t hat New York continues to be a national leader and is doing all it can to protect women, support victims and exonerate the innocent.
Legislative history
New Bill
Fiscal implications
$500,000 was included in the 2016-17 adopted budget to support this legislation
Effective date
The 90th day after enactment, provided that paragraphs (c) and (d) of subdivision 1 shall take effect Immediately
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.