A California case in which police used DNA gathered from a woman who’d been raped to implicate her later in an unrelated crime is egregious on several levels. Not only is it a privacy invasion of Orwellian proportions to use DNA gathered from a victim to turn her into a suspect, it also risks worsening the already serious problem of getting rape victims to come forward.
California is now revamping its statutes regarding handling of DNA in rape kits. Missouri authorities should conduct a full review of laws here to ensure this kind of violation isn’t possible.
The woman at issue in San Francisco had been raped in 2016. She allowed collection of her DNA for a rape kit in the effort to convict the rapist. DNA collection from the victim is necessary to provide a control standard that allows investigators to distinguish the perpetrator’s DNA from that of the victim. While the perpetrator’s DNA is routinely kept in crime databases for comparison to future crimes, that’s never been the purpose of collecting the victim’s DNA.
