Changes can be made to strengthen the American legal, justice, and medical system.
These recommendations are provided for educational purposes only. Not all of these recommendations are directly related to the sexual assault case at issue.
The Rape Kit Backlog
We should end the rape kit backlog. We need to test rape kits in a timely manner so that we:
are not prolonging trauma for victims and putting them at a higher risk of suicide
so that we are preventing rapes and murders. There have many many instances where an offender has committed murder while a backlogged rape kit containing their DNA was not processed in a timely manner.
so that DNA evidence isn’t lost due to degradation
For more information about the rape kit backlog, go to End the Backlog.
Tiffany brought Oregon State’s rape kit backlog to the attention of the media and the Joyful Heart Foundation that runs End the Backlog in 2024. Prior to Tiffany’s advocacy, some media sources were incorrectly reporting that Oregon State had no rape kit backlog when the backlog was significant. Many Oregon lawmakers became aware that Oregon’s rape kit backlog had reemerged due to Tiffany’s advocacy and the advocacy of media members Tiffany reached out to.
Not only does Oregon have a rape kit backlog, according to this police report for Tiffany’s case, Oregon State Police’s DNA unit temporarily paused all “Y-STR testing” in 2024.
To end the rape kit backlog, more funding needs to be allocated to the testing of rape kits. A portion of “punitive damages” (monetary awards in civil lawsuits designed to punish defendants for malicious, fraudulent, or grossly negligent misconduct) should be allocated to state forensic labs for the purpose of ending the rape kit backlog.
Rape Kit Exam Guidelines
For sexual assault victims 15 years of age or older, Oregon publishes the Oregon Medical Guideline for Sexual Assault Evaluation of Adolescent and Adult Patients, which is developed and published by the Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force. These guidelines instruct forensic nurses how to conduct rape kit exams. However, they are just that - guidelines. There is very little that forensic nurses are required to do in Oregon for rape victims other than offer emergency contraception and STD prophylaxis. Oregon should pass laws requiring forensic nurses to follow laws ensuring that forensic nurses thoroughly document victim injuries and collect DNA while preventing DNA contamination. ORS 147.403 is not sufficient.
Rapid SAVE Investigation LLC (abbreviated “RSI”) is a forensic nursing company that conducts in Oregon and Washington State, as the name suggests, rapid forensic exams for sexual assault, domestic violence, and strangulation. Victims of such grave events should be treated respectfully with thorough exams, not with rapid exams. All hospitals that work with Rapid SAVE Investigation LLC should find alternative forensic nursing services and end any contracts with Rapid SAVE Investigation LLC. Click here to learn more about RSI.
Investigations of Police Officers
Oregon police departments investigate complaints against their own departments. It is not effective for police officers to investigate their coworkers and friends. Investigators of complaints should be more impartial. Complaints against a police department should be investigated by a police department of a different county.
Gag Orders
Once a victim is represented by an attorney, that attorney has the power to stipulate (agree to) protective orders (gag orders) requested by the defense party(ies). It is routine practice in the US legal system for attorneys representing victims in civil cases to agree to protective orders that severely restrict the ability of victims to speak out to the public. Attorneys may agree to a protective order that is harmful to their client if a protective order decreases the attorney’s workload (e.g., saves the attorney time that would be spent filing motions to file documents under seal) and does not affect the attorney’s earnings. We should require victims to personally consent to and sign stipulated protective orders in order for them to go into effect.
FDA Approvals for Medications for Depression and PTSD
Many victims experience treatment-resistant depression and PTSD.
The FDA should approve an inexpensive medication called moclobemide that is approved in the European Union. Moclobemide is the only antidepressant in pill form of the MAOI class that doesn’t have life-threatening interactions with certain foods, and it can be very effective for treatment-resistant depression.
The FDA should also approve the use of methylphenidate (Ritalin) for depression and PTSD for patients who are not experiencing ongoing traumatic events. Research shows that Ritalin may be an effective treatment for depression and PTSD.
Victim Access to Legal Advice
Legal representation is cost prohibitive to many Americans. Legal representation is so expensive because the United States restricts the ability to provide legal advice, thereby insulating the legal profession from competition and maintaining expensive prices for legal services. It should not be the responsibility of the Unites States government to “protect” Americans from poor legal advice by restricting access to legal advice to the those who can afford expensive legal services. The restrictions on providing legal advice limit access to justice, particularly for low-income individuals who are more likely to be victims of assault. Attorneys should not be the only individuals permitted to offer legal advice. States should reform their laws regarding who can offer legal advice. At the very least, states should permit certified paralegals to represent plaintiffs in family law cases, personal injury cases, and employment law cases, so that assault victims have affordable access to legal representation.
Nurse-to-Patient Ratios
For decades, hospitals have been intentionally understaffing nurses. Oregon House Bill 2697, establishing mandatory nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, was passed by the Oregon legislature in June 2023 and went into effect on September 1, 2023, a couple months after Tiffany was raped. All states need to pass bills mandating minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Bills mandating nurse-to-patient staffing ratios decrease patient deaths, improve nurse burnout, and decrease the nursing shortage. Click here to learn more about the nurse-to-patient staffing ratio.
High School Education
We should teach high school students about mental health disorders, especially class B personality disorders such as antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. Doing so will help people recognize potentially dangerous characteristics in themselves and others. Click here to learn about the difference between narcissists and psychopaths.
We should also teach high school students about civil litigation, introducing them to terms such as “statute of limitations,” “ultimate facts,” and “relation-back doctrine,” to make pro se litigants (litigants who represent themselves) more legally competent.
Victim Access to Police Records
We should give victims who report crimes the right, without the need to file a lawsuit, to access all police reports, electronic evidence files, forensic reports, evidence reports, and chain of custody reports for the case law enforcement initiatives to investigate the reported crime, if the victim is not a suspect of any crime, other than false reporting, related to the case. Certain sensitive information, such as information that can be used to trace an individual, should be redacted or omitted.
This change would make law enforcement far more transparent and less susceptible to corruption. Additionally, this change would improve the productivity of police investigations, as it would allow victims to understand where law enforcement misunderstands, or is in need of, information. For example, it is common for police to mistake the identities of people in surveillance video footage, and access to the surveillance video footage could allow victims to offer clarifications.
Empowering Pro Se Litigants
States should ensure that pro se litigants (people who represent themselves in a lawsuit) have the same legal resources as attorneys. For example, Oregon does not create OJCIN (the state’s court records system) accounts for pro se litigants. This gives defense parties represented by attorneys a significant advantage because their representation can a) easily perform legal research regarding similar cases, and b) quickly view court orders. To read court orders for their case, a pro se litigant in Oregon will likely need to visit a law library or courthouse. However, such places are normally open during limited hours during weekdays. This means a pro se litigant may need to take time off of work to visit a law library or courthouse in order to read a court order for their case. Court orders often require parties to take action within a certain amount of time. If an employer does not permit an employee who is a pro se litigant to take time off work, the pro se litigant may lose a case in Oregon simply due to the litigant’s lack of access to OJCIN.
Polygraphs
Because polygraphs are scientifically unreliable, laws should be passed prohibiting law enforcement from using polygraphs in any way for law enforcement investigations.
Notifications about Broken Evidence Tape Seals
Law enforcement should be required to notify victims when any evidence tape seals for the victim’s case are broken, so that victims know evidence may have been tampered with.
Police Evidence Room Audit Reports
Evidence technicians audit the evidence in police department evidence rooms and record issues such as broken evidence tape seals and missing evidence. Law enforcement should be required to make evidence room audit reports public record so that the public knows the extent to which evidence may have been tampered with. Additionally, the reports should list the police officers who’ve worked on each case where evidence has been tampered with.
Psychology Training for Police Officers
We should provide law enforcement more training about how the brain responds to trauma. It is possible for sexual assault victims to not be able to provide a linear, exact narrative of their assault because of the nature of trauma and dissociative amnesia. Stress hormones released during an extremely traumatic event can impair the area of the brain (hippocampus) responsible for forming detailed memories. Law enforcement should receive more psychology training to help police officers understand that if a victim can’t provide a linear, exact narrative of an assault, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t assaulted - it might mean that the assault was extremely traumatic to the victim. One educational resource is this presentation by a psychologist.
Forensic Exam Deadlines
Many jurisdictions in the United States require DNA evidence to be collected within 72 hours of a sexual assault, and will otherwise refuse to collect or analyze DNA evidence for a sexual assault. This arbitrary deadline is not based on scientific evidence. Scientists are able to obtain a Y-STR marker (male DNA profile) from swabs collected within 10 days after a sexual assault. Jurisdictions should not have extreme deadline cutoffs for the collection of rape kit swabs and instead should base their deadline cutoffs on scientific evidence.
Police Interviews of Victims
We should make it illegal for police to employ a ruse when interviewing alleged victims for the purpose of investigating an alleged sexual assault. A ruse is a planned deception or trick used by law enforcement to gain a person's cooperation. One example of a ruse is a lie about what surveillance video shows. As explained in the documentary Victim/Suspect, because sexual assault investigations are time-consuming for police officers to investigate, many young, traumatized rape victims have been pressured by police officers who employ a ruse to falsely recant their allegations, so that police officers can close closes. These rape victims are then sometimes charged with false reporting, which harms their reputation and increases their risk of suicide.
Medical Research
Antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) is a condition where certain parts of the brain do not connect normally and as a result, one cannot feel empathy. There is currently no effective treatment that can be prescribed by a doctor for this disorder. We should fund more research for potential treatments or cures for antisocial personality disorder. About one third of the prison population has antisocial personality disorder. A cure would massively decrease crime rates, and could save the world trillions of dollars in military spending by preventing some wars. Click here to learn more about antisocial personality disorder.
Entry of DNA Profiles in CODIS
DNA profiles, collected from crime scenes or swabs of criminals, are stored in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). CODIS can be searched to see if there are any “hits” (matching crime scenes or criminals). CODIS can be used to identify serial rapists and serial murderers.
A DNA profile from an alleged crime scene cannot be entered in CODIS if the allegation of the crime is deemed “unfounded” by law enforcement. Law enforcement has discretion as to what allegations it deems as “unfounded.” As shown in the Victim/Suspect documentary, many police officers have deemed credible allegations as unfounded to decrease their workloads. We should require law enforcement to enter a DNA profile into CODIS for all alleged sexual assault cases (when a DNA profile exists for a case), even if law enforcement has deemed an allegation to be unfounded.
“Black Box” DNA Analysis Systems
The manufacturers of some DNA analysis systems refuse to provide the source code showing how their DNA statistics are generated. It should not be a mystery how a DNA analysis system reaches a statistic concluding how likely it is that an alleged suspect is the person who committed a crime. DNA analysis has significant consequences for the liberty of the accused in court. For the liberty of the falsely accused, all DNA analysis programs should be required to provide their source code so the DNA analysis methods are subject to scrutiny. American courts have ruled that the manufacturers have a right to confidentiality and these rulings should be struck down.
A Male DNA Database in CODIS
Swabs collected during a rape kit exam often contain a combination of DNA from both a female victim and a male offender. There are 2 ways for a forensic lab to separate the male DNA from the female DNA. One way is a process called “differential extraction,” where harsh chemicals are applied to the DNA mixture. This destroys the female DNA, but leaves sperm cells, which have a tough coat, intact. The forensic lab can then generate a DNA profile from the sperm cells. However, this process requires sperm, and not all swabs collected from rape kits contain sperm. The other way is to generate a “Y-STR” DNA profile (profile of DNA on the Y-chromosome). Only men have a Y-chromosome, so testing a swab for Y-STR DNA only generates a DNA profile for a male.
The US government uses the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) to store DNA profiles from crime scenes and swabs of criminals. CODIS can be searched to see if there are any “hits” (matching crime scenes or criminals). However, CODIS only contains a database of DNA profiles for “autosomal DNA” (DNA that men and woman both have). Unlike some other countries, the United States does not have a federal Y-STR database. That means that when rape kit swabs do not contain sperm, the male DNA profile can’t be entered or searched in CODIS to see if there are any “hits.” The United States should create a database in CODIS for Y-STR DNA profiles, and should collect Y-STR DNA profiles from criminals, so that more sexual assault cases are solved. Although a Y-STR database may not allow law enforcement to identify one exact offender in all cases since men pass Y-STR DNA profiles down to their sons, a Y-STR database would benefit investigations by narrowing suspects down to a paternal lineage.
The Database Match Probability
The “database match probability” indicates what number of people in a database have the same DNA profile found at a crime scene. The database match probability is calculated by multiplying the random match probability (chance that a randomly selected person would have the same DNA profile) by the number of people in the database that was searched. For example, if the random match probability indicates that 1 in 100,000 people have the DNA profile found at the crime scene, and a database contains 1,000,000 people, that means the database match probability is 10 people.
Crime laboratories have been resistant to reporting the database match probability of a DNA profile. However, the database match probability is important for cold hit cases (a cold hit refers to a match between a DNA profile from a crime scene and a DNA profile for a person in a database, where the person identified by the DNA match was not previously suspected in the case) because the database match probability communicates the significance of a DNA match. Crime laboratories should not be resistant to providing the database match probability. This information is important for preventing wrongful convictions.
Change is possible.
In 2012, the documentary The Invisible War was released. It explained that it was the decision of the military commanding officers of sexually assaulted troops whether to prosecute sexual assault cases. The commanding officers were often either friends of the assailants or the assailants themselves. As a result, it was common for commanding officers to penalize victims instead of alleged perpetrators. The survivors and advocates featured in the documentary called for shifting prosecution away from commanding officers. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta viewed this documentary on April 14, 2012. Two days later, on April 16, 2012, he ordered that all sexual assault cases be handled by senior officers at the rank of colonel or higher, which ended the practice of commanders adjudicating sexual assault cases for their own units. Beginning December 28, 2023, the decision to prosecute serious crimes such as sexual assault moved from victims' chain of command to military attorneys who apply the best practices and procedures of civilian prosecution offices.
Tiffany is not affiliated with End the Backlog, the Victim/Suspect documentary, or The Invisible War documentary.