Rape kit storage questioned

Forensic evidence collected from potentially hundreds of sexual assault victims may have been rendered inadmissible in court because the Sex Abuse Treatment Center in Honolulu has kept evidence kits at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children rather than sending them to a law enforcement lab for storing.

The Sex Abuse Treatment Center, which is Oahu’s major resource for sexual assault victims, operates out of Kapiolani and has been storing rape kits there in cases where a victim is still deciding whether to report their assault to police. A victim can decide days, weeks or years later that they want to report the crime.

But national experts in sexual assault investigations say that this evidence — which often contain swabs of bodily fluids, blood samples, hair and other forensic evidence collected soon after a sexual assault — should be promptly turned over to law enforcement to ensure that it’s stored in a controlled environment and the chain of custody of evidence is maintained. Otherwise, defense attorneys can raise questions about whether the evidence was tampered with or properly stored.

“Theoretically, (the Sex Abuse Treatment Center) could maintain chain of custody, but realistically that is pretty hard,” said Kimberly Lonsway, research director at End Violence Against Women International, which provides professional training in sexual assault investigations. Lonsway said that often multiple nurses and other professionals have access to storage areas in medical facilities.

Lonsway said a larger issue is that evidence labs have very strict standards for preserving evidence, from temperature and humidity control to how thick the walls can be.

“For all of those reasons, our position as an organization is that they (Sex Abuse Treatment Center) should not be in the evidence storage business,” she said.

Adriana Ramelli, executive director of the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, wasn’t available for an interview and didn’t respond to written questions provided last week about how many kits are currently being stored at the hospital and how far back they date. But in a written statement, she said that the kits are secure.

“Consistent with its mission to support the emotional healing process of those sexually assaulted, the Sex Abuse Treatment Center of Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children has procedures in place to turn over sexual assault kits to law enforcement if and when a survivor decides to pursue legal action,” she said in the statement. “In 2015, over 75 percent of the survivors seen by SATC decided to report their sex assault to police. The kits of those who chose not to report are properly stored in a secure and safe area.”

Between 2001 and 2010, the center saw an average of 508 victims annually, according to a report published by the center. About 71 percent of the victims reported their assaults to police. It’s not clear if all of those treated at the center had forensic evidence collected, but the data suggest that hundreds of sexual assault kits could be affected by the center’s storage policy.

Lonsway said kits being stored at Kapiolani should still be turned over to law enforcement so they can be held in a secure area in case a victim wants to move forward with having the kit analyzed for DNA evidence.

“Even if the results are ultimately not admissible in court due to challenges to the chain of custody and evidence storage, the results might help generate investigative leads,” she said by email. “For example, imagine if the evidence is tested and there is a match to another case. Then the detective can talk to the victim in that case, and perhaps uncover information or other sources of evidence that would be admissible. Or at the very least, they can generate useful intelligence even if it doesn’t lead to prosecution. It is helpful for law enforcement to have an idea about who might be serial perpetrators in their community.”

Kits destroyed

The storage issues come amid growing alarm about the overall handling of forensic evidence in sexual assault cases on Oahu.

In response to a legislative mandate, the Honolulu Police Department disclosed in a report to the Hawaii attorney general’s office last week that out of 1,512 sexual assault kits in its inventory, it had only tested 137 of them. The kits date back to the 1990s.

However, a report by Hawaii News Now earlier this week revealed that the department has destroyed hundreds of other rape kits over the years, most of which were never tested. The department left this information out of its report to the attorney general’s office, raising alarm among victims’ advocates and some lawmakers.

A total of 2,677 kits were submitted to HPD over the years and only 179, or about 6 percent, were ever tested, according to Hawaii News Now.

HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that in many cases the destroyed kits belonged to cases that had been accepted for prosecution or withdrawn by the alleged victim.

“Generally speaking, evidence may be released after a case has been adjudicated, after prosecutors or investigators have authorized its release, or after the statutory time limit for legal actions has passed and the case has not been referred to the prosecutors,” she said by email.

Victims’ advocates for years have been urging police departments across the country to test all of the kits submitted to them as part of an investigation. The kits can not only prove useful in solving individual crimes, but by uploading the DNA evidence into a national database, they can help detect serial rapists and prevent future assaults from occurring.

The Joyful Heart Foundation, a victim advocacy organization, called the news that hundreds of kits had been destroyed “very concerning.”

“Every untested kit represents a missed opportunity to bring justice and healing to a survivor and increased safety to our community,” said Kata Issari, executive director for the Joyful Heart Foundation’s Hawaii office, by email. “Mandating the swift testing of every sexual assault kit sends a powerful message to survivors that they — and their cases — matter. It sends a message to perpetrators that they will be held accountable for their crimes. It demonstrates a commitment to survivors to do everything possible to bring healing and justice. It is also the pathway to a more effective criminal justice system and safer communities across the state.”

The final report

HPD’s report on untested kits is expected to help form the basis of a final report due to the Legislature on Dec. 1, which is supposed to analyze all four of the county police departments’ testing practices and chart a course for testing the kits that have been sitting in storage.

The Hawaii Women’s Legislative Caucus said in a statement released Tuesday that it expects the final report to “include the specific reasons why certain evidence kits were not tested, and the numbers of kits destroyed for each of those types of cases.”

“This information is critical to determine how to best address untested kits, handling of future kits and appropriate victim notification,” according to the statement. “We look forward to working with the State Attorney General and all four counties to improve our laws, policies and practices for sex assault cases in order to pinpoint repeat offenders and reduce the frequency of this violent crime in Hawaii.”