AB 844

Processing of sexual assault kits

Under current law, there is no statutory procedure for the collection and

processing of sexual assault kits. This bill creates procedures for transmission,

processing, and storage of sexual assault kits. Under the bill, a health care

professional who collects a sexual assault kit must do one of the following: 1) if the

victim chooses to report the sexual assault to law enforcement, the health care

professional must notify a law enforcement agency within 24 hours of collecting the

kit; or 2) if the victim chooses not to report the sexual assault to law enforcement, the

health care professional must send the kit to the state crime laboratories for storage

no more than two business days after collecting the kit. Under the bill, if a law

enforcement agency has been notified by a health care professional that a kit has

been collected, the law enforcement agency must take possession of the kit within 48

hours, and must then send the kit to the state crime laboratories for processing no

less than 48 hours and no more than seven days after taking possession of it. If the

victim changes his or her mind about wanting to have his or her kit analyzed after

it is given to a law enforcement agency but before the agency sends the kit to the state

crime laboratories for processing, the agency must send the kit to the state crime

laboratories for storage rather than for processing.

Under the bill, once the state crime laboratories takes possession of a sexual

assault kit, it must do one of the following: 1) if it has received the kit of a person who

has not consented to analysis, securely store the kit for 50 years; or 2) if it has

received the kit of a person who has consented to analysis, process the kit within 90

days and then securely store the kit for 50 years, until the date of the expiration of

the statute of limitations, or until the end of a term of imprisonment or probation of

a person convicted in the sexual assault case, whichever is longest.

Sexual assault victim bill of rights

This bill creates a sexual assault victim bill of rights. In addition to the rights

extended to crime victims under Wisconsin's basic bill of rights for victims and

witnesses, this bill adds the following rights for victims of sexual assault, regardless

of whether or not they choose to cooperate with a law enforcement agency: the right

to be provided with accurate written information about his or her rights as a sexual

assault victim; the right to bathe immediately following a sexual assault forensic

examination; the right to choose whether or not to cooperate with a law enforcement

agency; the right to have any sexual assault kit stored for 50 years or until the end

of the prison term of the person convicted of the assault against him or her; and the

right to be notified in writing of the results of his or her sexual assault kit analysis,

to be notified in writing of the occurrence of analysis of another sexual assault kit in

which there is a matching DNA sample collected, and to be notified in writing 60 days

prior to the destruction of any evidence obtained in a sexual assault forensic

examination.