The Georgia House voted unanimously Tuesday to require law enforcement to more quickly submit neglected sexual assault evidence to the state’s forensic labs for processing.
House Bill 827 aims to address complaints that the packages storing the evidence, known as 'rape kits,' are being left untested even though they contain valuable DNA evidence.
Known as the Pursuing Justice for Rape Victims Act, the bill would also launch a statewide count of the untested evidence so that agencies can find funding to test them. Investigators would be required to pick up new evidence within 96 hours from the hospitals and other facilities where it is collected, and transfer it to Georgia Bureau of Investigation forensic labs within 30 days.
"We are facing an epidemic nationally and here in Georgia of rape kits not being processed in a timely manner," said the bill's sponsor, state Rep. Scott Holcomb, D-Atlanta. The bill, he added, was a step toward changing that.
The legislation comes after an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation last year found that Grady Memorial Hospital had locked away more than 1,400 rape kits in file cabinets on the mistaken belief that federal medical privacy regulations barred them from giving the kits to law enforcement. Officers had also failed to pick up the evidence after it was collected.
HB 827 now goes to the state Senate for consideration.
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