Massachusetts General Laws ch. 6A sec. 18Y – Annual reporting by law enforcement agencies, medical facilities, crime laboratories, and any other facilities that receive, maintain, store or preserve sexual assault evidence kits
Section 18Y. Annually, on or before September 1st, the following reports regarding the previous fiscal year shall be submitted to the executive office of public safety and security by law enforcement agencies, medical facilities, crime laboratories, and any other facilities that receive, maintain, store or preserve sexual assault evidence kit. The reports shall contain: (i) the total number of all kits containing forensic samples collected or received; (ii) the date of collection or receipt of each kit; (iii) the category of each kit; (iv) the sexual assault that was reported to law enforcement; (v) whether or not the victim chose not to file a report with law enforcement (non-investigatory); (vi) the status of the kit; (vii) the total number of all kits remaining in possession of the medical facility, law enforcement or laboratory and all reasons for any kit in possession for more than 30 days; (viii) the total number of kits destroyed by medical facilities, law enforcement or laboratories, and reason for destruction; (ix) in the case of a medical facility, the date the kit was collected, the date the kit was reported to law enforcement and the date the kit was picked up by law enforcement; (x) in the case of law enforcement, the date the kit was picked up from a medical facility, the date the kit was delivered to the crime laboratory and, for kits belonging to another jurisdiction, the date that the jurisdiction was notified and the date it was picked up; and (xi) in the case of crime laboratories the date the kit was received, from which agency the kit was received, the date the kit was tested, the date the resulting information was entered into CODIS and the state DNA databases and all reasons a kit was not tested or a DNA profile was not created.
Terms Used In Massachusetts General Laws ch. 6A sec. 18Y
- Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
- Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
- Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
The executive office of public safety and security shall compile the information in a summary report that includes a list of all agencies or facilities that failed to participate in the audit. The annual summary report shall be made publicly available on the executive office of public safety and security’s website and shall be submitted to the governor, the attorney general, the clerks of the house of representatives and the senate, and the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on the judiciary.
The executive office of public safety and security may obtain information from the tracking system established in section 18X and by additional means, such as manual counts and review of records such as case files.