Federal officials who pledged millions of dollars to test backlogged rape kits promised that sexual predators would be brought to justice – and wrongfully convicted prisoners would be exonerated. Nine years later, after the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative awarded nearly $350 million in grants to 90 state and local agencies, USA Today has been able to confirm just one exoneration as a result of the grant program. Thousands of kits that could free more innocent people have been left untested – again., USA Today reports. The National Institute of Justice recommends testing backlogged kits from all reported sexual assaults, including in closed cases. Entering DNA profiles from those kits into a national database could help clear wrongfully convicted people and identify rapists who have evaded justice. Following those standards is not required to get a grant, and recipients in at least 10 states didn’t do it.
The agencies didn’t test backlogged kits in cases with a previous confession, guilty plea or conviction, or if the suspect’s DNA already was in the national database. As a result, prisoners with cases tied to untested kits must overcome legal hurdles before the evidence can be analyzed for DNA. The process typically takes years – if it happens at all. In the meantime, the true perpetrators may be left free to commit more crimes. Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, did not respond when asked for a list of exonerations attributed to the program. Federal data provided via a public records request was riddled with errors. The city of Cleveland reported 23 exonerations to the government, and Connecticut’s Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection reported two. Officials in both places said those numbers were mistakes and should have been zero. No other grantees reported exonerations. The newspaper found details about two overturned convictions in Wayne County, Mich., by searching media archives and websites, including the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of universities in Michigan and California. Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy has been at the forefront of bringing attention to the rape kit backlog. Only one of those exonerations was directly attributed to the federal grant program. The other, of Anthony Dyer, occurred as a result of Worthy's previous efforts to ensure untested kits were analyzed.
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