Now, a five-month CBS News investigation of 24 cities and states has found more than 6,000 rape kits from active investigations waiting months, even years to be tested.
On average, six months in Rhode Island, Alabama and Illinois. It can take nearly a year in Missouri. Up to three years in Anchorage, Alaska. One state, Louisiana, has rape kits dating as far back as 2001 waiting to be tested.(1)We're number two second only to Louisiana. I can only imagine the jealousy in the leadership of law enforcement and the leadership at the department of law in Alaska over Louisiana flaunting their incompetence and corruption skills so shamelessly. Maybe if we check how long it takes to test the kits in the rural areas we could beat them?
Wonder why the number of rapes is so high here in Alaska? Not testing rape kits is a huge contributor. In the villages I found out if the woman does not want to press charges the state does not prosecute. We know it is common for women who are in a domestic violence situation to not want to prosecute out of fear of retaliation. At least 1/3 of women raped know the man who assaults them. The women also face some pressure from family and neighbors not to prosecute in small close knit communities. Most states have laws that if there is a domestic violence incident someone gets arrested. This is also done to diffuse the situation. If there is evidence of a rape the state should be investigating the evidence even if the victim does not want them to just like arresting and prosecuting someone for domestic violence when their partner does not want them arrested.
"It's absolutely astounding," said Sarah Tofte, Research Director at Human Rights Watch. "What's the point of sending a rape kit to a crime lab for testing if you can't get to it for say, eight years?"(1)Here in Alaska we had a female Mayor in Wasilla, Sarah Palin who charged women who had been raped for the rape kits which sends the message that the crime of rape is not taken seriously(4). If you want justice you have to pay for it yourself. Crimes against women have a history of being put on the back burner or not taken very seriously. We know this from many serial rape cases and serial murder cases where poor, minorities, or prostitutes are not given attention until the numbers of missing, murdered. or raped are very large. I was raped over thirty years ago by eight men in another state and because the owner of the home it happened in was the son of a prominent man in California the police would not even investigate. This incident did change the course of my life. If I could have gotten justice or counseling it would have helped me heal faster. I have to say that here in Alaska I have encountered trauma much worse than that rape and injustice of hugely incompetent and corrupt proportions.
Not only does Alaska have the responsibility to women who were already raped they have the responsibility to protect those who potentially will be raped by a serial perpetrator. There is also a responsibility to catch rapists at early stages because some of them can be rehabilitated. The more times they rape the less their potential for finding a way to stop and the high recidivism rate is made worse because of this. I believe catching them early by educating the public on the importance of reporting any and all rapes is important. This can be done by letting women know they will be supported by not only the state, but their families, and communities. I do not mean to ignore male rape victims, this is all just as important for them.
The other side of the coin is there are many cases of men in prison for rapes they did not commit based on crap science. We know eye witnesses are a very poor source of evidence and are very often wrong or influenced by investigators. The way line ups are done in Alaska has come under scrutiny. The department of law is finally allowing a case in which DNA testing can be done in the Gregory Marino murder case. DNA evidence could also be used in rape cases to exonerate men falsely accused of rape and/or find the real perpetrator.
These situations are horrible because people are in prison who are innocent and the guilty party can be continuing to rape. I believe these mistakes in prosecution are the reasons they blocked DNA testing to exonerate men from convictions and they also know it is going to cost a lot of money. On the other hand if the conviction was correct use the DNA testing to prove it beyond a doubt. I would also like to see the statistics on how many rape kits are from rapes on native women and then the number which are not tested due to the women not wanting to prosecute as compared to other reasons.
Alaska is one of three states in the U.S. that doesn’t have a DNA access law, along with Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Representative Bob Lynn (R-Anchorage) has a bill currently in the legislature that would allow for post-conviction DNA testing, if the applicant can show that the results could establish a reasonable doubt as to the applicant’s guilt of the crime he or she was convicted of.(2)Alaska is always one of the top holdouts for justice. Since 1989 two-hundred-forty-five cases in this country have been exonerated using DNA(5), that should be proof enough that there could be prosecution errors in Alaska. Can you imagine being in prison for years and be innocent, saying you are innocent, not believed, or even abused by prison guards for saying it. I can because it happened to me for a short amount of time compared to their stories.
This is why Bob Lynn had to write this law and I think it says it all about the DOL:
Lawyers for the state were thrilled with the ruling. Had it gone the other way, states could have been forced to hold onto evidence forever, on the chance that new tests would materialize down the road, said Richard Svobodny, Alaska deputy attorney general over criminal matters.(3)That is the same Richard Svobodny who told me they would never do anything about my wrongful prosecution and imprisonment caused by ADA John Earthman and the lies told about me to news media.
"Even though we don't have a specific DNA statute, what we have is perfectly adequate. More than adequate," said Ken Rosenstein, the lead lawyer for the state in the Osborne appeal.
Still, they acknowledge no Alaska convict has ever had DNA testing of evidence after a conviction. A court ruled in favor of one convict, but by the time the test was attempted, the evidence had been destroyed(of course).(3)No convict has ever had DNA testing, The DOL believes what we have is perfectly adequate for the pitiful lack of due process in Alaska.
Senator Hollis French (D-Anchorage) has a related bill that would enforce preservation of evidence, particularly biological evidence that would need to be kept in sufficient quantities and proper conditions to allow future DNA testing. According to French’s office, the bill is supported by the Departments of Law and Public Safety, the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. It’s expected the bill will pass in the upcoming legislative session.(2)This bill and the one Representative Lynn wrote may be why the DOL finally agreed to have DNA testing done on a post conviction case and I am thankful someone cares enough about fair justice in Alaska to write them. I am very surprised considering their history that the DOL is supporting it. I guess justice can only be forced on them. I know from my own personal experience they care little about facts and there are huge due process problems with the judicial system as evidenced by the William Osborne case. The Supreme Court ruled that an inmate had no right to post conviction testing of DNA stating that the states post conviction relief procedures are adequate. That is a huge load of very smelly manure otherwise the department of law would not be blocking the testing of the DNA in his case to begin with. The very fact that no one has been allowed to have DNA testing and he had to go to the Supreme Court to begin with makes it clear.
(1)http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/10/cbsnews_investigates/main5603492.shtml?tag=stack
(2)http://www.anchoragepress.com/articles/2009/10/30/news/doc4adf7ec9e7c75511769557.txt
(3)http://www.adn.com/front/story/836388.html
(4)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html
(5)http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/351.php
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