Managing Victims’ Expectations About What Forensic Evidence Can Tell the Court
Victims must be helped to understand that even if the examination does yield probative forensic evidence, it will not eliminate the necessity of testifying at the criminal trial. The forensic evidence will be presented to explain and corroborate the account of the sexual assault to which the victim testifies.
Victims must also be helped to understand that that despite their having undergone a long, invasive, and emotionally draining examination, there is no guarantee that the swabs, scrapings, fibers and clothing collected during the examination will produce any probative forensic evidence. Potential reasons for this include:
- the passage of time between the assault and the examination;
- intervening actions by the victim such as showering, urinating, or defecating;
- the assailant did not ejaculate;
- the assailant wore a condom; or
- the sample of sweat, saliva, or semen obtained in the swab was too small to enable the crime lab to secure a complete DNA profile.