State your case: Should crime victims' DNA be included in a criminal database?

A woman whose rape kit DNA was used by San Francisco police to arrest her for an unrelated property crime is now planning to sue the city


A woman in San Francisco was arrested for a property crime for which she became a suspect after a DNA match connected her to the crime. The DNA came not from a voluntary submission or as a result of a previous arrest, but from a sample that was volunteered as part of a forensic examination of her person after she reported being the victim of a sexual assault. Officials say that the commingling of her victim DNA with the database for criminal investigation was an unforeseen and unintentional result of using various DNA samples for quality control measures. 

The undisclosed property crime was dismissed. Whether that was due to a looming lawsuit, an ethical and legal question that might not survive a court challenge, the case has rattled civil rights advocates and politicians. The woman now plans to sue the city.

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