Rape in Ohio: 3 takeaways for Cincinnati region on why few DNA matches ended up in court

Since 2011, Ohio has processed thousands of sexual-assault test kits that had been stored for years in police departments across the state. In Southwest Ohio, only about a third of the kits submitted from nine police agencies even yielded a DNA match, and even fewer produced an arrest or prosecution. 

In collaboration with the Plain Dealer (Cleveland), The Enquirer talked with police about the test kits and the results. Here are three key points about the imbalance between DNA matches and prosecutions sought.

1. DNA testing produces a scientific result, but that doesn’t always make a case in court. Television crime shows can leave the impression that solving a case is as simple as submitting a DNA sample for testing. In fact, that testing, especially in cases of sexual assault, opens complicated issues for the victim and criminal justice system. 

In the seven years of Ohio’s initiative, 13,931 rape kits have been tested, but barely 5,000 returned a match in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, called CODIS. Some kits were connected to cases from as far back as the late 1980s, the early days of DNA testing for police work.

The Cincinnati Police Department, for example, turned in 338 rape kits in 2012 for testing, and 136 came back with a DNA match. West Chester turned in 27 kits that produced three matches. Thirty-one kits found in a basement of the Butler County coroner’s office yielded seven DNA hits but no prosecutions.

2. When a sexual-assault kit did produce a match, and police did reinvestigate, women often recanted accusations or declined to prosecute. Cincinnati Police Sgt. David Simpson, a detective with the personal crimes squad, said the department reinvestigated cases attached to the 136 matches, and he recalled only one led to an arrest. Simpson and other law enforcement officers across Southwest Ohio said a key reason that test results did not translate into prosecutions was the reluctance of the accusers to pursue prosecution.

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In Sharonville, police Lt. James Nesbit said the department ran down nine DNA matches produced from the backlogged rape kits. In six cases, the victims declined to prosecute. In one, a suspect had been arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison long before the DNA match. In another, the new evidence went to a grand jury, which decided not to charge anyone. Another person was indicted on criminal charges, tried by a judge and acquitted.

Julie Wilson, spokeswoman for the Hamilton County prosecutor and a trial lawyer, said a DNA match isn’t necessarily good news for a sexual-assault victim especially after the passage of time. In most instances, the victim knows the assaulter, or the victim feels shame that the assault happened after a night of drinking. Regardless of specifics, no one wants to relive the experience before a judge or jury, Wilson said.

“Even if you have what laypeople would call a lot of evidence, still, for the victim, coming to court is very traumatic, to recount what probably was the worst thing that ever happened to her,” she said.

“It may seem to a layperson, 'oh, gosh, you have DNA, it’s going to be a slam-dunk.' Well, not necessarily,” Wilson said. “As a prosecutor, I always felt that I didn’t do my job unless the victim totally understood the court system,” and to endure a cross-examination can be too upsetting a prospect.

For advocates who walk with survivors through the aftermath of sexual assault, clearing the backlog of rape kits is good. But it’s a small component of the larger issue of stopping or at least reducing sex crimes.

“I don’t think it’s a failing of any particular one system,” said Kristin Shrimplin, chief executive officer of Women Helping Women, Greater Cincinnati’s only nonprofit agency aiding sexual-assault survivors. “What is the accountability we are placing on people who choose to violate another human being?”

“What are we doing in all aspects of our culture to really say to survivors: 'This wasn’t your fault, I believe you, there’s help available,' ” Shrimplin said.

3. Most local police said they have adequate resources to reinvestigate test results. Arthur Scott, police chief for the Butler County city of Trenton, said his department reinvestigated the five cases that had DNA hits after the recent testing. One suspect had been arrested long before the kit was tested and was adjudicated in juvenile court. But in the other four instances, the victims declined to press the case.

Scott pointed out that while DNA testing can boost the evidence in a sex crime, “We’ve been solving rape cases for many, many years without DNA. These particular investigations are difficult, and they were made much better by DNA, but you don't necessarily have to have DNA to get a conviction. It’s nice when you have it.”

Lt. David Tivin of the West Chester Police Department also pointed out that as DNA testing grows in sophistication, police have to be selective about what evidence to submit for testing. “It’s kind of double-edged now,” he said. “You can find a greasy fingerprint somewhere, and there could be possible value in swabbing it.” But as the sexual-assault backlog demonstrated, crime laboratories can only process so much evidence at any given time.