DNA From Rape Kit Used to Identify Woman for Property Crime

[Yuwipi Woman]

Here's a really odd story and testament to the ways that technology gets used in ways the inventors didn't expect. In this criminal case, the DNA from a rape kit was used, years later, to accuse a woman of a felony property crime:

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco's police chief said Monday that he is investigating claims by the city's district attorney that DNA collected from rape victims is being used to help identify them as possible suspects in crimes.

The police crime lab “attempts to identify crime suspects" by searching a law enforcement database that includes DNA collected from sexual assault victims, District Attorney Chesa Boudin said Monday.

He didn't identify the database, but said one woman was recently arrested for a felony property crime based on her DNA collected years ago during a domestic violence-involved rape examination.

That could violate the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as California's Victims' Bill of Rights and could dissuade sexual assault victims from reporting crimes, Boudin said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Rapes and sexual assault are violent, dehumanizing, and traumatic. I am disturbed that victims who have the courage to undergo an invasive examination to help identify their perpetrators are being treated like criminals rather than supported as crime victims,” Boudin said in a statement. “We should encourage survivors to come forward — not collect evidence to use against them in the future."

Boudin didn't provide many details about the case and said his office is still investigating how many victims of sexual assault may have been arrested based on their DNA.

However, the database could potentially include thousands of DNA profiles from sexual assault victims, he said.

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said he has ordered an investigation.

“We must never create disincentives for crime victims to cooperate with police, and if it’s true that DNA collected from a rape or sexual assault victim has been used by SFPD to identify and apprehend that person as a suspect in another crime, I’m committed to ending the practice,” he said.

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen said she learned about the alleged practice last weekend and has asked the city attorney's office to draft legislation barring the use of rape kit evidence except to investigate the rape, the Chronicle reported.

DA: San Francisco police used rape kit DNA to arrest victim

San Francisco’s police chief says he's investigating claims by the district attorney that DNA collected from rape victims is being used to help identify them as possible crime suspects

abcnews.go.com

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, if someone committed murder, I'd want them found. On the other hand, no woman should fear being prosecuted years later on the basis of DNA placed in a database as part of investigating a crime against them, especially one as personal and harmful as rape. I know it'll have a chilling effect on reporting rape if your DNA will remain in a database and used to investigate crimes. I wouldn't report if I knew that's how it was going to be used.

What say you'all?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I think objecting to this on the grounds of 'unlawful search and seizure' just goes to show that the law protects property rights before people's bodily autonomy.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I think objecting to this on the grounds of 'unlawful search and seizure' just goes to show that the law protects property rights before people's bodily autonomy.

.... or the status as "property" that the law tends to assign to women and children.

 

[Diamond]

The creeping techno-authoritarian state - very sinister indeed.

The bottom line is that either everyone's DNA should be in the database (not good) or else none should be.

Any other approach is fundamentally discriminatory.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The creeping techno-authoritarian state - very sinister indeed.

The bottom line is that either everyone's DNA should be in the database (not good) or else none should be.

Any other approach is fundamentally discriminatory.

There's all kinds of issues with DNA that we haven't dealt with as a society. What is to be done with DNA that is entered into a database when the person was later acquitted? Is it to be removed or kept in the database?

Is DNA from ancestry testing sites going to be entered into databases. I know that its already been used to identify suspects.

I also think there's some class differences here. The wealthy can likely avoid being entered into a database by hiring better lawyers. The poor, as always, have to rely on public defenders, who are either unmotivated, overwhelmed, understaffed, or just plain worthless.

 

[petee]

There's all kinds of issues with DNA that we haven't dealt with as a society. What is to be done with DNA that is entered into a database when the person was later acquitted? Is it to be removed or kept in the database?

the NYPD claim they're expunging the DNA of the innocent

N.Y.P.D. to Remove DNA Profiles of Non-Criminals From Database (Published 2020)

The police say they will start expunging some of the 82,000 people in the database who have never been convicted of a crime.

www.nytimes.com

the official version

NYPD Announces Reforms to DNA Collection Policies

New York City Police Department Announces Reforms to DNA Collection Policies

www1.nyc.gov

why am i dubious.

 

[Yossarian]

It seems like an outrageous abuse of evidence to me, American lawmakers are talking about banning the use of rape kit evidence for any other purpose than investigating the rape and I hope the legislation passes.

It might lead to a few suspects getting away with crimes but anything that makes people less likely to report rapes is going to lead to a lot more rapists getting away with it when conviction figures are already woeful.

And it's not as if there are going to be many people in the middle of the Venn diagram of "serial killers who have been unapprehended for decades" and "rape victims."

 

[RubyToogood]

What say you'all?

I say fuck that.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Is DNA from ancestry testing sites going to be entered into databases. I know that its already been used to identify suspects.

The ancestry websites have their own databases and they have indeed been used to track crime suspects as well people who fathered children in poor countries.

re the OP: all shades of wrong there.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The ancestry websites have their own databases and they have indeed been used to track crime suspects as well people who fathered children in poor countries.

re the OP: all shades of wrong there.

My family had something like that happen. One of my uncles was stationed in Britain during WWII. He fathered a couple of children with a woman there. They wrote back and forth for a couple of years about bringing her here. Neither family was thrilled with the match so they eventually cut off contact. Later this uncle married and had children with someone else. He never told any of these kids that they had half-siblings. Recently one of these cousins was surprised to find that DNA tests showed that he had relatives in Britain. A visit was arranged and they all got along famously.

 

[Ax^]

the NYPD claim they're expunging the DNA of the innocent

N.Y.P.D. to Remove DNA Profiles of Non-Criminals From Database (Published 2020)

The police say they will start expunging some of the 82,000 people in the database who have never been convicted of a crime.

www.nytimes.com

the official version

NYPD Announces Reforms to DNA Collection Policies

New York City Police Department Announces Reforms to DNA Collection Policies

www1.nyc.gov

why am i dubious.

most like as good as the met for doing that

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I say fuck that.

Totally.

We either reject this or we accept that DNA is taken at birth and stored, ‘just in case’

Nope.

 

[MickiQ]

It's not just rape, it's the victims of all crimes, it's people who have theirs taken and then cleared, the people who volunteer theirs in order to narrow down the field of suspects. All this needs destroying not finding its way onto the same database(s) as people who have been convicted.

 

[Riklet]

Completely and utterly fucked up!! Its crazy her DNA went onto a more general database...

 

[izz]

There is absolutely no response to the original post better than:

I say fuck that.

Fuck THAT indeed.

Moral and ethical objections aside there are just too many opportunities for incompetence or malfeasance here, what if there's a mix-up in DNA results ? What if, someone accuses a police officer, say, of rape, handily leaving their DNA available for future use by the force ?

Yet another reason to avoid reporting a rape or sexual assault. What's happening to the world that something so fucked up can happen ?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

There is absolutely no response to the original post better than:

Fuck THAT indeed.

Moral and ethical objections aside there are just too many opportunities for incompetence or malfeasance here, what if there's a mix-up in DNA results ? What if, someone accuses a police officer, say, of rape, handily leaving their DNA available for future use by the force ?

Yet another reason to avoid reporting a rape or sexual assault. What's happening to the world that something so fucked up can happen ?

Any time there's the least bit of leeway in deciding who stays in the database, and who gets expunged, they will lean toward keeping the data. Also, the people they hire, assuming they have allocated the funds for this in the first place, will be a low level clerk, making just over minimum wage. The entire history of rape kits shows that they are mishandled or not tested. This mishandling is unlikely to change once it has been tested and entered into a database.

 

[izz]

Any time there's the least bit of leeway in deciding who stays in the database, and who gets expunged, they will lean toward keeping the data. Also, the people they hire, assuming they have allocated the funds for this in the first place, will be a low level clerk, making just over minimum wage. The entire history of rape kits shows that they are mishandled or not tested. This mishandling is unlikely to change once it has been tested and entered into a database.

Yes all that, absolutely, it's just horrific.