The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on May 2 passed a bipartisan bill cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) that would update federal law and push forward the completion of the nation’s untested rape kits.
“In North Carolina alone, there are more than 15,000 untested rape kits,” Sen. Tillis said. “Victims of this heinous crime deserve justice and we should be doing everything we can to put the perpetrators behind bars.”
Sen. Tillis in March cosponsored the Debbie Smith Act of 2019, S. 820, with bill sponsor U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) to continue the testing of DNA evidence, including rape kits, from unsolved crimes across the country.
Among the 15 other cosponsors of S. 820 who joined Sen. Tillis are U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Richard Burr (R-NC), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
If enacted, S. 820 also would provide funds for the DNA training and education of law enforcement personnel, correctional staffers and court officers, and for the Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Program, which supports forensic nurse training.
In addition to crime scene evidence, Debbie Smith funds also are utilized to process offender DNA samples to ensure evidence from unsolved crimes can be matched against a database of known offenders, similar to the criminal fingerprint databases, according to information provided by Sen. Tillis.
Sen. Tillis’ office noted that the Debbie Smith Act originally became law in 2004 to provide resources to local and state crime laboratories to end the backlog of untested DNA evidence from unsolved crimes, among others. Since then, he added, more than 641,000 DNA cases have been processed.
“I hope this legislation comes before the full Senate and gets signed into law soon,” said the senator.