Sen. Cruz: There Is Bipartisan Will to Address the Backlog of Untested Rape Kits

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, today participated in a hearing titled ‘Promoting Justice for Victims of Crime: Examining the Federal Investment in DNA Analysis.’ There, he questioned Director Gerald LaPorte from the Office of Investigative and Forensic Services on the Department of Justice’s efforts to address the backlog of untested rape kits, and what specific congressional action can be taken to address this problem. 

“I can tell you from my perspective, there’s real interest in solving this problem,” Sen. Cruz said. “That we’ve been talking about it for too long. We need to solve it. So if we have a rape kit, it needs to be tested. And if there’s a DNA match, and we know who the perpetrator is, they need to be arrested and put behind bars. I’ll confess, this is the second hearing I’ve had in a couple of weeks on this topic and the answer I keep getting is essentially, ‘We don’t know, we don’t measure it, we don’t have the data.’ Is DOJ able, if you made it a priority, to, as you put it, deconvolute the data and assemble the basic information? What is the average wait time? How many kits are not tested? What progress are we making in testing them? And what needs to be done to fix it? If those numbers are unacceptable, what solutions do you need from Congress? There is will. And it’s bipartisan will to fix it. But we need the metrics to be able to address the resources to solving the problem.”

Watch Sen. Cruz’s line of questioning here. A transcript is below: 

Sen. Cruz: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Good morning, thank you both for being here. Thank you for your good work. Mr. LaPorte, as you know, in 1989 Mrs. Debbie Smith was forced to wait six and a half years before her rapist could be identified through DNA testing. She is here today and she is the namesake for the Debbie Smith Act of 2004. Since that time, what are some of the current metrics and the wait times for rape kits to be tested in 2018? And how much room for improvement is there?

Mr. LaPorte: So we can’t compare necessarily wait times but we’re confident that these types of crimes are taking a precedent and a priority in the laboratory. So there’s no doubt about that. There’s been, there’s also been very – we’re making strides. But I think collectively, you know I said this earlier, collectively we can all do better. But we are definitely making strides and laboratories are focused on this as well. Investigators – because of the training and what we’ve learned – investigators are much more aware of these types of crimes. And I’ll give you an example of what we’ve learned from the neurobiology of trauma. I don’t want to pretend to be an expert in this, but I’ve seen many talks, but one of the things is that all victims - or victims can react differently when there is a sexual assault. And they may not remember things. They may act like nothing happened. And I think in the past, law enforcement officers - the way they were trained - was that if someone was coming in and providing an inconsistent story, then they were lying to them. So I think we’ve learned a lot more now. One of the things that we urge in our best practices for sexual assault cases is for law enforcement to receive more training in the neurobiology of trauma so that they can understand that the inconsistent story does not necessarily mean a lie.

Sen. Cruz: So help me understand what you said. You said that it’s not possible to compare the periods. Do we have any metrics at all? Are we measuring what is the average wait time for a kit to be tested? How many kits have not been tested? What progress are we making in testing the backlog? That which we measure, we can improve. If we’re not measuring, we can be pretty certain we’re not going to improve.

Mr. LaPorte: Yeah, absolutely. So we do have metrics on when evidence is submitted to a laboratory on how long what we call the turnaround time. That varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from laboratory to laboratory. We do know, and I believe Dr. Goodwin can confirm this, is that violent crimes are generally - they’re going to be prioritized over property crimes. So the turnaround time for violent crimes - testing for violent crimes - is going to be significantly lower than what we see in property crimes.

Sen. Cruz: So do you have any specific number in terms of the average wait time to test a rape kit? I’m focusing in particular on the crime of rape which is uniquely destructive and also particularly susceptible to DNA testing that that evidence can be particularly helpful in apprehending the perpetrator. 

Mr. LaPorte: Generally speaking, laboratories, they don’t deconvolute that data so that it’s - so that they’re looking at specifically like a sexual assault kit and then how long the turnaround time is for that…

Sen Cruz: So what would it take to, as you put it, deconvolute that data? And does it take congressional action or can you do that? Because I can tell you from my perspective, there’s real interest in solving this problem. That we’ve been talking about it for too long. We need to solve it. So if we have a rape kit, it needs to be tested. And if there’s a DNA match, and we know who the perpetrator is they need to be arrested and put behind bars. I’ll confess, this is the second hearing I’ve had in a couple of weeks on this topic and the answer I keep getting is essentially, ‘We don’t know, we don’t measure it, we don’t have the data.’ Is DOJ able, if you made it a priority, to as you put it, deconvolute the data and assemble the basic information? What is the average wait time? How many kits are not tested? What progress are we making in testing them? And what needs to be done to fix it? If those numbers are unacceptable, what solutions do you need from Congress? There is will. And it’s bipartisan will to fix it. But we need the metrics to be able to address the resources to solving the problem. 

Mr. LaPorte: So the Department can collect the data. I know that. We collect lots of data. So collecting data is definitely not an issue. It’s whether or not every laboratory in the country is able to report that data. And that becomes a difficult question because not every laboratory collects their data the same way.

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