Maryland launches sexual assault evidence kit tracking system

Gov. Wes Moore and Attorney General Anthony Brown discussed the launch of an online system Monday for sexual assault survivors to anonymously track their DNA evidence test kits as they progress through the criminal justice system.

Using a barcode system, survivors of sexual assault will be able to keep tabs on their evidence kits as they move from the hospital, to the police department, to a crime lab and so on. Survivors will be given a unique tracking number and password after their evidence kit is completed at a hospital. Everyone who comes into contact with the kit is to scan the barcode when its in their custody, so that survivors can look up its exact location at any given time.

“When survivors don’t feel the system is on their side, survivors won’t come forward and justice won’t be served. And that’s hurting all of us,” Moore, a Democrat, said at a news conference in Annapolis on Thursday morning. “But when people feel there’s accountability, we have a better chance of getting evidence, and a better chance of closing cases, and a better chance of serving justice.”

After someone reports to law enforcement that they have been sexually assaulted, oftentimes they will undergo a forensic exam at a hospital to collect DNA evidence to confirm or identify their attacker. The evidence is then preserved so that it can be used during a criminal trial.

“This kit is a promise of justice,” Brown, a Democrat, said. “However, for too many victims and survivors in too many communities — not only here in Maryland, but across the country — when kits left hospital rooms, victims were left with nothing but questions: ‘Where’s my evidence kit? When does justice come?’”

The program, known as Track Kit, is already in place. Legislation passed in 2023 mandates that all evidence kits in the state’s backlog be added to the system by Dec. 31, 2025.

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, a Democrat, said the tracking system will aid his office in identifying witnesses to introduce DNA evidence, and allow prosecutors to ensure that kits are actually being tested.

Shellenberger is in his fifth term as the county’s top prosecutor. His office and the Baltimore County Police Department came under fire in 2019, when county officials said that both agencies needed to do a better job of investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.

Online tracking systems already exist in states across the country, including North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma. But Maryland is the only state to track all existing evidence kits, including those that were collected before its system was created.

According to the governor, Maryland had 5,000 untested evidence kits in 2022.

Lisae Jordan from the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault said that survivors who need assistance using the tracking system can contact her organization at (833) 364-0046, or can reach out to their local rape crisis center.

As of Thursday morning, Brown said 14 survivors have logged into the system a combined total of 90 times since May 28.

“What does that tell you?” he asked. “Survivors want action.”

Angela Wharton is a prime example.

In 1996, Wharton, a mother of two girls, was raped at gunpoint in a wooded area in Northeast Baltimore. She underwent a forensic exam, which she said was “invasive and humiliating.”

“It was a grueling ordeal, where my body was a literal crime scene,” Wharton said Thursday. She said she endured the exam in the hope that the person who attacked her would be held accountable for his actions.

That day never came.

In 2018, she discovered that all of the evidence in her case, including her untested evidence kit, had been destroyed by the local police department less than two years after she was assaulted. Wharton said that the tracking system “represents a ray of light” for survivors who often have their “trauma dismissed and their pursuit of justice thwarted.”

“I vow to continue to use my voice to advocate for change, to raise awareness, and to support efforts that give other survivors a greater chance at justice,” Wharton said. “I want my daughters to grow up in a world where their voices are heard, their bodies are respected, and their rights are upheld.”

Lawmakers have worked for years to bring more transparency to survivors of sexual assault.

Sen. Shelly Hettleman, a Democrat from Baltimore County, who has championed the issue throughout her legislative tenure, said she was inspired to act after reading an article in The Baltimore Sun about a young woman who alleged she was vaginally penetrated by a beer bottle after going out for drinks with a coworker. She said that Baltimore County Police didn’t take her seriously, and found out three years after she was assaulted that her evidence kit and the beer bottle she gave to law enforcement had been thrown away.

“And so began my journey building on the work of so many who came before me,” Hettleman said.

Moore said that the new system will hold law enforcement accountable to send sexual assault evidence kits to crime labs for testing rather than having them go unprocessed in evidence lockers.

In 2017, Hettleman successfully sponsored legislation that standardized the method in which sexual assault evidence kits are preserved. The bill also had a provision mandating evidence kits be held for 20 years before they are thrown away. That was later changed to 75 years.

In 2018, the General Assembly passed legislation that required the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention to apply for federal funding to create a sexual assault evidence kit tracking system.

Maryland has received $5 million from the federal government for kit testing and the tracking system.

During the 2023 legislative session, Hettleman and House Judiciary Committee Vice Chair Sandy Bartlett sponsored a bill to regulate reporting requirements for the tracking system.

“It wasn’t good enough to build it,” said Hettleman. “We actually have to hold stakeholders accountable for interacting with it.”

“Survivors deserve justice and they deserve peace,” she continued. “I hope this tracking system will allow them to have both.”