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Gov. Gavin Newsom this fall approved two bills sponsored by Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley that aim to address two problems facing crime victims in California — slow processing of sexual assault testing kits and the short time to file charges in revenge porn cases.
Senate Bill 215, authored by State Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) and co-sponsored by the Joyful Heart Foundation and Natasha’s Justice Project, allows sexual assault survivors to track the status of their personal examination test kits online via the “Sexual Assault Evidence Forensic Tracking” (SAFE-T) database.
“Sexual assault survivors should have the right to know whether their evidence kits have been tested,” O’Malley said in a statement this month. “After bravely undergoing an exam after an assault, this law will provide survivors with the ability to track the kit and the peace of mind to ensure that law enforcement is doing their statutory duty to analyze the evidence in a timely manner.”
Ensuring more efficient processing of rape kits has been a focus for O’Malley locally, statewide and nationally since taking office. In 2013, she spurred a countywide review and found a backlog of nearly 1,900 untested kits — that number is currently zero.
The Leyva bill will allow survivors to anonymously and electronically learn the status, location and information from their evidence kit in a secure, web-based portal.
“I am so proud that we are once again prioritizing and empowering rape survivors by making sure that they are able to easily and privately find out where their rape kit is in the process,” Leyva said.
The second legislation, Senate Bill 23 written by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), extends the statute of limitation for reporting invasions of privacy commonly referred to as revenge pornography.
“The posting of intimate or private photos and videos without consent is not only invasive, and turning increasingly common, but a form of image-based sexual abuse. This new law will ensure that California can protect victims of this horrible crime,” O’Malley said.
Cyber revenge often involves private personal photos taken during a relationship that are then distributed electronically without the consent of the subject, usually on social media sites after a breakup to shame, harass or intimidate the victim.
The Rubio bill expands to one year from the time that the victim discovers any images or intimate materials posted online — rather than one year from the date they were posted.
“This will give victims, who often don’t find out until much later that the images have been released, more time to seek justice,” Rubio said.
