LANSING, Mich. — A bill just submitted in the Michigan Senate would create certain rights for victims of sexual assault to be notified of developments in their case.
Dubbed the Sexual Assault Victim’s Rights Act, S.B. 1004 mainly allows victims to ask for notification of developments in their cases. The law enforcement agency responsible for the investigation would be required to respond to the request.The sexual assault victim would be allowed to make these requests of law enforcement:
- To be informed of the status of processing of all evidence
- “To be informed of whether a DNA profile of an assailant was obtained from the processing of evidence in the sexual assault case”
- “To be informed of whether a DNA profile of an assailant has been entered into any data bank designed or intended to be used for the retention or comparison of case evidence”
- “To be informed when the sexual assault evidence kit was submitted to the forensic laboratory, when the evidence is compared against any data bank, and of the results of the comparison,” unless disclosure impedes an investigation
The bill was assigned to committee and still must go through both state houses and be signed by the governor before becoming law.
