Reducing the rape kit testing backlog
JUSTICE | Patrick Yeagle
Rosa Pickett’s eyes still well up with tears as she describes how, in 1977, she was raped, beaten unconscious and left in the weeds as a young woman in Robbins, Illinois, near Chicago. Still, she keeps her composure as she recalls how the same man contacted her in 1987.
The 10-year statute of limitations on Pickett’s rape had run out, meaning her attacker could not be charged. Evidence from Pickett’s case was never tested, and it was apparently lost or destroyed by the time Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced in 2013 that 51 rape kits spanning 1986 to 2011 had never been submitted for testing by the Robbins Police Department. Pickett’s rape is a closed case from a law enforcement perspective, but for her, the wound it caused is still open.
“I don’t know where he’s at now,” Pickett said, referring to her attacker. “He got away with my rape, so who’s to say he hasn’t done it again and gotten away with that, too?” Pickett shared her story at the Statehouse on May 20 in support of legislation that would change when the statute of limitations on rape begins. Illinois currently has a backlog of sexual assault evidence which has not been tested, and the bill is meant partly as a protest on behalf of rape victims.
Sen. Mike Noland, D-Elgin, had never held a press conference in his eight years as a lawmaker, but he broke that streak on May 20 to present House Bill 369. Under that legislation, the statute of limitations on rape would start when the evidence in a given case is tested. Currently, the statute of limitations begins when the crime occurs.
The bill passed the Senate on May 20 with a vote of 55-1. Rep. Deb Conroy, D-Villa Park, sponsored the bill in the House, where it passed on April 15 with a 115-0 vote. The bill awaits a signature from Gov. Bruce Rauner.
In 2010, Illinois lawmakers passed a law requiring sexual assault evidence to be submitted to the Illinois State Police for testing within 10 days of when a law enforcement agency receives it. The law also mandated that the state police crime lab test each set of sexual assault evidence – which can include rape kits and other evidence like the victim’s clothes or the suspect’s clothes – within six months. However, Noland points out that the law is “subject to appropriation,” which means testing can only be done to the extent that the legislature allocates enough money. Noland says that hasn’t happened, resulting in a backlog of rape evidence in Illinois.
Arlene Hall, commander of the forensic science division for the Illinois State Police, says after the 2010 law passed requiring testing of all sexual assault evidence, the agency began receiving numerous rape kits and other evidence that local police agencies had been storing for years. All of that evidence has now been tested, Hall says, so the evidence in Illinois’ current backlog is all from cases that have occurred since 2010.
Hall notes that her department defines a case as backlogged if it is in process or has yet to be tested 30 days or longer after arriving at one of her six labs across the state. She also says the department doesn’t track cases by type of offense, so she’s not sure exactly how many sexual assault cases – as opposed to murder or burglary cases, for example – are awaiting test results from her department’s biology and DNA testing section. Still, she says her lab currently has 2,427 cases with biological evidence awaiting tests, which is an improvement from around 3,000 cases at the beginning of 2015. The number of cases with DNA evidence specifically has stayed constant this year at about 2,533. Hall adds that in 2014, her labs handled an estimated 4,700 sexual assault cases.
Asked whether her department is underfunded, Hall diplomatically says that, like any state agency, there are “fiscal constraints” she has to work within.
“Whatever resources we get – money, personnel and all the other stuff – we have to split between all the different kinds of cases we handle, not just sexual assault,” she said. “It’s a balancing act, and we do the best we can do.”
The same day that Rosa Pickett spoke in Springfield, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution in Washington, D.C. Madigan told the panel that Congress must act to help eliminate the backlog of sexual assault evidence nationwide, which is estimated at more than 400,000 cases. Madigan called for Congress to make more federal money available to states for evidence testing.
Madigan was behind the 2010 Illinois law which required testing of all sexual assault evidence. That effort grew out of a Human Rights Watch investigation five years ago which revealed that out of 7,494 rape kits collected by police agencies across Illinois, only 1,474 had been tested. Madigan told the Senate panel that one out of every five women in the U.S. experience rape at some point in their lives, but less than 15 percent of reported rapes result in arrest.
“We know the main reason that women don’t report rape is that they don’t believe their crime will be taken seriously,” Madigan said. “These unconscionably low numbers justify their concerns.”
Contact Patrick Yeagle at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com.
