An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup
63 points by owens99 4 years ago | 29 comments- justinlilly 4 years agoAdmissibility in court feels like the barest minimum of requirements here, to say nothing of the other services like counceling the linked thread discusses.
- candiodari 4 years agoYes, but having the option to admit this in court, including of course the choice to NOT admit it, to stop all proceedings, in the justice system and/or court seems equally the barest minimum of requirements. Including the option to deny anything happened everywhere. To avoid and/or dealing with counceling (or God forbid, CPS. There's plenty of children and adults who are terrified of dealing with any official at all because of their experiences with CPS. They, frankly, have good reason). That's the requirement that I think this private rape kit does better than the official one.
- glaive123 4 years agoExcept DIY kits are not an option to admit in court. They are not admissible. There is a temporary order allowing them to be collected during COVID-19 in California only. It is yet to see if these will even hold up.
- candiodari 4 years agoNone of that matters in civil proceedings, like divorce or child custody hearings. Even pictures of Facebook chats are admissible there. If those are more important to you (even if they're not happening yet), I would still understand the choice to go for these.
Furthermore, admissible only matters to a limited extent. It means someone won't go to jail based on this evidence alone. It doesn't mean it doesn't get considered at all. Even then, there's hacks, you could have someone from the company testify to the results of the kit and what the results mean, for example.
Using these kids deprives the government and public prosecutor of many options and places a lot of power with the individual. That weakens the case, but that may be a good trade for people. I'm not sure giving people extra options between keeping silent and going full-on nuclear with zero control and uncertain result (the government route) is such a bad thing.
I can also see why a person with this job (and the conviction that makes one take a job like this) would consider it a terrible thing.
- candiodari 4 years ago
- glaive123 4 years ago
- candiodari 4 years ago
- thedudeabides5 4 years agoAt home kits have been admitted to courts in California. The tweets claiming these kits are inadmissible is false.
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/04/9727395/rape-kit-at...
A judge determines what's admissible in a court of law. That's why your texts, social media posts, etc are all admissable.
The companies in this space are not trying to fool anyone into not going into the hospital. They are trying to help serve the 80%+ of survivors that never go to the official system.
- dogma1138 4 years agoThere is no way that these would work in the long term without chain of custody, even if some judge would approve the admission of these it would definitely lead and an appeal and there is no way the higher courts would uphold the tests, keep in mind that at home DNA kits are not even admissible in custody / paternal hearings if they are employed in a state that only require the consent of a single parent then at best they can only be used as a justification for a court ordered test.
At home rape kits is a recipe for disaster for rape victims and the legal system.
- thedudeabides5 4 years agoYou don't know what 'chain of custody means.'
Chain of custody is about tracking evidence after it's received by the justice system.
Chain of custody is about tracking that evidence after the cop gets it, to audit/avoid tampering.
If you get assaulted, and you bring in soiled underwear in a paper bag, that is admissible in court.
The chain of custody starts when the cop puts that underwear in an evidence bag. Otherwise courts would never be able to admit ANY evidence brought forward by a victim.
- dogma1138 4 years agoNo, the chain of custody starts when the evidence is collected, specifically from where and by what means without that there is no way to establish a CoC.
With these kits there is no way to verify that the DNA swab came from rape victims body or someone’s toothbrush.
This is the problem with these kits, any use of such kit would require a forensic nurse observing the collection, and that each swab is sealed in an evidence tamper bag and then the chain of custody can be established from that point on.
This is no different than any other physical evidence it either needs to be collected from the scene or forensically proven to be connected to it if it was recovered later or by someone else, and in cases when it does the defense will and quite likely successfully get it thrown out.
- dogma1138 4 years ago
- thedudeabides5 4 years ago
- glaive123 4 years agoIt appears that if they are persevering despite putting countless rape victims at risk, they might have bad intentions.
From the same article you posted:
> Defense attorneys worry that allowing victims to conduct their own rape exams could result in cross-contamination and raise issues of reasonable doubt. “If you want to frame someone, it’s easy to get their DNA onto a swab where you do a sex assault kit, and say, ‘Oh, look, here’s their DNA,’” criminal defense attorney Mark Reichel told the AP. Since they first hit the market last year, there has been a push to ban DIY kits for reasons like this.
Also from the article you posted:
> Northern California has issued a temporary order allowing rape kits to be collected by the survivor, at home, while a nurse walks them through the process via video call
It appears this is temporary.
- nivethan 4 years agoThis is with a cop parked outside and a nurse over a zoom call. These kits are being used as a last resort in the middle of a pandemic. Chain of custody looks to be a problem and it is mentioned in the article.
- decker 4 years agoThe article doesn't say anything about the sample being admitted in a CA court, it only quotes a DA being supportive of the home test kit.
- jj345 4 years agoLawyer confirming this. Best and well known example of similar evidence would be Monica Lewinsky’s black gap dress.
- dogma1138 4 years agoWith Monica’s famous dress CoC isn’t an issue because the CoC of the dress once submitted can be preserved anything before that isn’t important because if it is semen and it’s Bills then Bill needs to have a plausible explanation on how it got onto the dress in a manner that didn’t involve the stroking of his cigar.
With these kits there is no way to validate that the evidence was actually collected from the victim and not from say a toothbrush.
Monica’s dress in this case is well the victims vagina or any other body part that was assaulted and may contain DNA evidence of the assailant not the kit.
- dogma1138 4 years ago
- dogma1138 4 years ago
- underseacables 4 years agoRather than a “rape kit start up,” which is a really awful phrase to use, why don’t we process all of the backlog rape kits that are sitting in the evidence lockers across the country, first.
- toomuchtodo 4 years agohttp://www.endthebacklog.org
Founded by Mariska Hargitay of “Law and Order: SVU” fame.
- MisterTea 4 years agoThere's no money to be made from justice.
- JoeyBananas 4 years agoThis is a weak argument because those goals are not mutually exclusive
- oh_sigh 4 years agoBecause the startup is basically just a few people who believe in the idea, whereas the backlog of rape kids is a problem distributed over the entire country through the institutional neglect of thousands of people?
If the two people who founded this startup were going to take your advice - how would they do it? Just send a check to crime labs all over the country and hope they process the kit? Start a letter writing campaign?
- toomuchtodo 4 years agoDoing it as a startup means you’re out of touch, don’t appreciate the scale of the problem and the work involved, and the risk you put survivors in of not being able to get justice.
This is a policy and legal challenge, not a business.
- e6fuehere 4 years agoWhy can't it be both? The tweets and comments like yours come off as wildly tone deaf to me. The system is failing people /now/ and there are people trying to provide a supplemental solution to that failing. If startups like this are so problematic then the answer should be rendering them irrelevant not demonizing their efforts. Give victims something better instead of fighting to limit competing options. If the diy kits end up failing to demonstrate legal merit then it's not like they'll be especially in-demand anyway.
- oh_sigh 4 years agoOkay - so let's cancel the startup that these two people are doing. How should they best see the changes they think need to happen?
- e6fuehere 4 years ago
- toomuchtodo 4 years ago
- DanBC 4 years agoFor most cases of rape there's no doubt that the accused and the victim had sex. There victim says it wasn't consensual, but the accused says it was.
Rape kits provide no useful information in these cases.
- toomuchtodo 4 years ago
- hundchenkatze 4 years agoHere's some additional reporting on this:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/diy-remote-rape...
- knowthevibes 4 years agoImmoral to give survivors options other than the largely unused hospital and law enforcement processes? Any sexual assault counselor should know that survivors most often do not want to be re-traumatized through being physically manipulated by another individual. If COVID-19 has shown us anything, it is that remote options ARE feasible. Self-use kits were used in Monterey and Marin counties in California out of necessity (https://www.ksbw.com/article/monterey-county-das-office-allo...), and necessity breeds widely used innovation. It would make sense to die on this hill if the current system was survivor-centric. But it is not. You’re putting far too much faith in a system built to reflect and serve the interests of law enforcement and hospitals, not the needs of survivors. Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible. Not only is your information outdated, but it is also misleading. Try keeping your personal value statements (and your baseless interpretation of criminal law?) out of the conversation. Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead.
- glaive123 4 years agoIt's interesting to see the only comments defending this startup are from newly created accounts.
The article you shared appears to conflict with what this startup is offering.
> It's being called a "temporary protocol" that so far, has only been used once on April 5. Nassoura said the process starts by the victim calling law enforcement and then, "The officer goes to the victim's residence, places it (the sexual assault test) on the front door step, waits in the vehicle. The victim then goes to the front door gets the sample and they begin a zoom video call." That zoom video call involves a forensic nurse, the detective and a victim advocate. Once the victim's statement is taken by the officer, the nurse is the only one that remains on the call. The victim then self-collects the sample under the nurse's guidance and direction.
And to your point:
> Moreover, further research will show you that the startup explicitly encourages survivors to visit a hospital or contact law enforcement if at all possible.
The problem is, this startup's business model specifically relies on victims not visiting the hospital.
> Ask sexual assault survivors what they would like to see instead.
They would probably want their evidence to be admitted in court, rather than raise reasonable doubt.
- dogma1138 4 years agoThis is the issue here the issue of CoC isn’t about what happens to the kit once it’s submitted but how the collection is done.
What ever temporary protocol California or any other state has put into place I can guarantee you that it involves the forensic nurse not only instructing the victim on how to use the kit but verifies that the victim collects samples only from themselves and that these samples are sealed in an tamper resilient bag/container by the victim in clear view of the nurse.
As in the nurse has to watch the victim swab their own vagina, anus, finger nails and any other body part that may have DNA evidence and place the swab in a bag and seal it.
The seal would then be inspected by law enforcement and the lab and the CoC would be documented and preserved.
At that point the amount of doubt is more or less identical to having consensual sex to gather DNA evidence and then falsely accusing someone of rape which can happen regardless of where the evidence collection takes place.
This is the part these kits cannot provide and this is why they cannot be admissible there is quite a big difference between having consensual sex to collect DNA evidence which is easier to prove and just being able to take a cotton swab to someone toothbrush or water bottle.
- dogma1138 4 years ago
- glaive123 4 years ago
- varajelle 4 years ago> An Immoral, DIY Rape Kit Startup
I read the title as there was a startup selling kits for DIY rape. Pretty immoral indeed. I was just wondering what's in the kit.
- jj345 4 years agoAnytime I see a Twitter post by a dude coming after women...especially something like this my eyes roll out of my head. Cool. Another hit piece on female founders. Never seen those before.
- TeaDrunk 4 years agoThis is a tweet thread covering the risks of a tech startup that has raised money in the effort to disrupt rape kits, most specifically having previously called itself MeToo Kits and rebranding to Leda Health. The tweet thread explains that the DIY rape kits are likely doing more harm than good, partially because these rape kits don't have the documentation of who owned the kid when and where that a rape kit at a hospital would have and therefore may not be admissible in court.