San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has dropped charges against a woman linked to a 2021 property crime after learning that police had used DNA collected from her rape medical exam during the investigation.
The District Attorney’s Office said the collection and use of the DNA from the 2016 rape kit was an illegal search and seizure and violated protections of the Fourth Amendment.
“This is illegal,” Boudin’s spokesperson Rachel Marshall told NPR on Thursday.
Officials only recently learned that the San Francisco Police Department had used a database that included DNA collected from sexual assault victims to identify possible suspects.
“We did not know this was happening,” Marshall said, adding that it was “a systemic problem that we just became aware of.”
The practice also dissuades victims of sexual assault from reporting their attacks.
“Public safety demands that we support sexual assault survivors and end any practices that dissuade them from coming forward,” Boudin said in a statement.
It’s not known if a sexual assault victim has been convicted in the city of an unrelated crime based on DNA collected from her rape kit. Nor was the outcome of the unidentified woman’s rape case revealed.
SFPD Chief William Scott has vowed to investigate the practice.
“If it’s true that DNA collected from a rape or sexual assault victim has been used by SFPD to identify and apprehend that person as a suspect in another crime, I’m committed to ending the practice,” Scott said on Monday.
City supervisors have also announced plans to pursue legislation to ban the practice.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.