Existing law requires the Office of Emergency Services to establish a protocol for the examination and treatment of victims of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault, including child molestation, and the collection and preservation of related evidence. Existing law provides failure to comply with this protocol does not constitute grounds to exclude evidence and prohibits a judge from instructing the trier of fact in a case that less weight be given to the evidence based on failure to comply. Existing law also establishes one hospital-based training center to train medical personnel on how to perform medical evidentiary examinations for victims of child abuse or neglect, sexual assault, and other similar crimes.

This bill would require the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Forensic Services, the California Association of Crime Laboratory Directors, and the California Association of Criminalists to work collaboratively with public crime laboratories, in conjunction with the California Clinical Forensic Medical Training Center, to develop a standardized sexual assault forensic medical evidence kit, as specified, to be used by all California jurisdictions. The bill would encourage those entities to collaborate and establish the basic components for a kit by January 30, 2018, and would require guidelines pertaining to the use of the kit’s components to be distributed throughout the state by May 30, 2019. The bill would require every local and state agency to be responsible for its own costs in purchasing a kit. The bill would also provide that failure to use a kit does not constitute grounds to exclude evidence and prohibits a judge from instructing the trier of fact in a case that less weight be given to the evidence based on failure to comply.