BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1017
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 13, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 1017 (Portantino) - As Amended: April 23, 2009
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill requires a law enforcement agency to test DNA rape
kits "after the kit is obtained." If the law enforcement agency
does not test the kit within six months, the agency must notify
a sexual assault victim orally or in writing of that fact.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires a law enforcement agency to inform the victim of the
status of DNA testing in his or her case when so requested.
(Current law authorizes such informing.)
2)Requires each law enforcement agency responsible for
processing rape kit evidence to annually report to the
Department of Justice (DOJ) the number of rape kits in its
possession that it has not tested or analyzed. The law
enforcement agency shall include in its report to the DOJ the
number of untested or unanalyzed rape kits in its possession
by year, covering at least the previous five years. (DOJ is
not required to do anything with this information.)
3)Requires each law enforcement agency to report to the DOJ the
total number of sexual assault crimes reported in its
jurisdiction that would require the offender to register as a
sex offender, as specified. (DOJ is not required to do
anything with this information.)
4)Specifies that sexual assault victims have the following
rights regardless of commitment of sufficient resources to
respond to information requests (current law makes these
rights subject to sufficient resources):
AB 1017
Page 2
a) The right to be informed whether a DNA profile of the
assailant was obtained.
b) The right to be informed whether a DNA profile has been
entered into the DOJ data bank.
c) The right to be informed whether a match between a DNA
profile developed from the rape kit and a profile in the
DOJ database.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Major state-reimbursable costs, potentially in the range of
$90 million for local law enforcement to clear the backlog of
untested rape kits. L.A. County alone has more than 12,000
untested kits. At a cost of about $2,500 per kit, the cost to
L.A. County would be about $30 million. Extrapolated
statewide, the total cost would be about $90 million, which
includes counties that do not have their own crime labs, but
rely on the DOJ for forensic services. While this bill does
not specify a time period for completion of the testing, it
does require the testing to be done.
2)Significant state-reimbursable costs, likely in the low
millions of dollars statewide, to inform thousands of crime
victims of the testing status of their case, and to annually
report to DOJ regarding cases and testing backlogs.
3)Unknown annual GF costs to the extent this bill results in
convictions and state prison terms that would not otherwise be
achieved without the testing required by this bill. If this
bill results in just two annual convictions with an average of
four years served, the annual cost would be about $350,000 in
four years.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to proponents, one of the biggest
problems facing the criminal justice system today is the
substantial backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples and biological
evidence from crime scenes, especially in sexual assault
cases. A recent L.A. City Auditor's report revealed thousands
of rape kits awaiting DNA processing in LAPD evidence lockers.
Timely analysis of these samples and placement into a DNA
database can avert tragic results. Currently, there are over
12,000 sexual assault rape kits awaiting DNA processing in Los
Angeles County alone.
AB 1017
Page 3
According to the author, "Last year, it was discovered that
law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles City and County had
thousands of rape kits in their evidence freezers that had not
been tested. There were even some kits that had been held in
excess of the 10-year statute of limitations for the crime of
rape. Since that time, both the City and County of Los
Angeles have committed themselves to opening and testing of
every rape kit in their evidence rooms?
"California is not doing everything it can to find and prosecute
rapists and sexual predators. AB 1017 will ensure that
investigators and prosecutors have the information and tools
to do this by requiring all rape kits to be tested."
DNA evidence collected from a crime scene can implicate or
eliminate a suspect, similar to the use of fingerprints. It
also can analyze unidentified remains through comparisons with
DNA from relatives. Additionally, when evidence from one crime
scene is compared with evidence from another, those crime
scenes can be linked to the same perpetrator locally,
statewide, and nationally. When biological evidence is
collected and stored properly, DNA can be found on evidence
that is decades old. Therefore, old cases previously thought
unsolvable may contain valuable DNA evidence capable of
identifying the perpetrator.
2)Concerns . While state and local law enforcement officials
welcome the push to reduce the DNA testing backlog of sexual
assault, officials note that evidence must be prioritized,
that the identity of the offender is not always in question,
such as in cases of date rape and spousal rape. As this bill
does not require a specific timeline, however, officials
should not be deterred from triaging their cases, though the
bill does require all kits to be tested eventually.
3)Current law allows a criminal complaint to be filed within one
year of the date on which the identity of the suspect is
conclusively established by DNA testing if the following
conditions are met:
a) The alleged offense is a registerable sex offense, and
b) The offense was committed before Jan. 1, 2001 and DNA
evidence is analyzed no later than January 1, 2004; or the
offense was committed after Jan. 1, 2001 and DNA is
AB 1017
Page 4
analyzed no later than two years from the date of the
offense.
4)Statutes of limitations for sex offenses depend on
circumstances and offense. A criminal complaint may be filed
within one year of the date of a report to law enforcement by
any person who, while under the age of 18, was the victim of
rape, sodomy, child molestation, forcible oral copulation,
continuous sexual abuse of a child, sexual penetration and
fleeing the state with the intent to avoid prosecution for a
specified sex offense. However, the existing statute of
limitations must have expired, the crime must have involved
substantial sexual conduct and there must be independent
evidence to corroborate the victim's allegations. If the
victim is 21 years of age or older at the time of the report,
the independent evidence must clearly and convincingly
corroborate the victim's allegations. A criminal complaint
may also be filed for the above-mentioned sex offenses any
time before the victim's 28th birthday when the offense is
alleged to have occurred when the victim was under the age of
18. Also any prosecution for a felony registerable sex offense
may begin 10 years after the date of commission.
5)The rationale for statutes of limitations . Statutes of
limitations ensure that prosecutions are based upon reasonably
fresh evidence, as over time memories fade, witnesses die or
move, and physical evidence becomes more difficult to obtain.
Statutes of limitations also encourage law enforcement
officials to investigate suspected criminal activity in a
timely fashion. In short, the possibility of erroneous
conviction or acquittal is minimized when prosecution is
prompt.
6)Related Legislation .
AB 383 (Lieu) extends the limitation on the time period for
testing DNA in specified sex crimes from two to five years. AB
383 is pending on this committee's Suspense File.
AB 718 (Fuller, 2008), would have deleted the time frame in
which DNA evidence must be tested after it is collected in
order to preserve the statute of limitations in sex offense
cases, as specified. AB 718 was held on this committee's
Suspense File
AB 1017
Page 5
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081