BILL NUMBER:  S8117

 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.

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