[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 154 (Tuesday, December 4, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H6589-H6590]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SAFER ACT FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.

[[Page H6590]]

  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, one of the most marvelous scientific 
breakthroughs in the criminal justice system has been DNA evidence. I 
remember when I was a judge in the courthouse when DNA started being 
used at the courtroom.
  Prior to DNA, many times prosecutors and law enforcement had to rely 
on blood samples and fingerprints. But once DNA came in, we learned 
that everybody has a unique genetic makeup that can be tested and it 
can be traced to perpetrators of crime when they commit a crime, 
especially in sexual assault cases.
  And convictions have gone up. The evidence is better. The proof 
beyond a reasonable doubt is much more concrete in DNA cases.
  In 1985, there was a 13-year-old girl named Lavinia Masters. Lavinia 
lived in Dallas, Texas. One evening she told her folks good night. She 
went to her bedroom, which should be, Mr. Speaker, the safest place on 
Earth for children. Went to sleep, and during the middle of the night, 
she was woken up by an outlaw putting a knife to her throat. He 
sexually assaulted her. Then he snuck away in the darkness of the 
night.
  That was in 1985. She went to the hospital. Her parents took care of 
her medical needs. DNA evidence was taken from her and put in a ``rape 
kit''. It was given to the law enforcement authorities, but that DNA 
evidence from that sexual assault that night in 1985 was not tested for 
20 years. It sat on the shelf in a crime lab somewhere in Dallas, 
Texas.
  Because the Dallas Police Department had a new incentive to go and 
look at those old cases, this case was looked at 20 years later. That 
evidence was tested, and the Dallas Police Department discovered that 
Kevin Glen Turner had committed this crime back in 1985. But that was 
20 years ago. The statute of limitations had run, and justice could not 
occur in Lavinia's case because the system waited too long to find the 
outlaw.
  Kevin Turner turned out to be a criminal in other cases and ended up 
in the penitentiary for those crimes, but justice was denied for 
Lavinia, denied because of bureaucratic red tape.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, many rape kits sit on the shelves of evidence 
rooms across the country untested. Some of them sit there so long that 
they're discarded by law enforcement, and the statute of limitations 
runs like it ran in Lavinia's case.
  She is not alone, Mr. Speaker. There are 400,000 untested rape kits 
in this country--400,000, that's a number; but every one of those 
represents a person. To try to put it in some perspective, there were a 
little over 400,000 Americans killed in World War II. They were killed 
by the enemies of our country. 400,000, primarily young women, have 
been assaulted by rapists who try to kill the soul of these victims. 
It's important that we not stop prosecuting these cases because of 
funding.
  That's why I've introduced, along with Congresswoman Maloney from New 
York, the bipartisan SAFER Act, companion bill with the bipartisan bill 
in the Senate by Senator Cornyn and Senator Bennet.
  The SAFER Act does a lot of good things, but basically it allows 
funding to go so to make sure that we test these cases. It audits these 
backlogs so that we know where these cases are that are sitting on the 
shelves. So it does the audit. It gets more funding. It brings these 
cases to justice so that we can make sure that these victims of crime 
have their day in court as well.

                              {time}  1010

  DNA is a wonderful thing. It's important that we make sure that that 
evidence is available for law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges in 
the courtroom.
  She was a child. Lavinia was a child when she was sexually assaulted. 
That was a long time ago. But there are 400,000 cases waiting to be 
tested. This is something that we can do in a bipartisan way today, to 
test those cases so we can bring justice to the victims of crime and 
make sure those outlaws get their day in court as well and be held 
accountable for the rape of children in our country.
  And that's just the way it is.

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