Amends TCA Title 4; Section 10-7-504; Title 29; Title 38; Title 39; Title 40 and Title 63.

As introduced, enacts the "Jim Coley Rape Survivors Protection Act." This bill revises present provisions relating to the process and protocol for forensic medical examinations of victims of sexually oriented crimes. Additionally, this bill creates new provisions regarding the process of collecting, storing, and tracking evidence from forensic medical examinations and rights of victims of sexually oriented crimes. Under present law, a victim of a sexually oriented crime is entitled to a forensic medical examination without charge to the victim. Following the examination, the evidence collection kit ("the kit") collected must be released by a healthcare provider to a law enforcement agency for storage or transmission to the state crime lab or qualified lab for serology or DNA testing. This bill revises the above-described process to require healthcare providers to notify law enforcement that a kit is ready for release, within 24 hours of concluding the examination, and to require the law enforcement agency to pick up the kit for storage or transmission within 48 hours of being notified by the healthcare provider. Present law provides that if an adult victim does not report the alleged offense to police at the time of the forensic medical examination, the kit becomes a hold kit, and a healthcare provider must assign it a number for identification instead of using the victim's name. The victim must be given the identification number, told where the kit will be stored, and the procedures on how to make a police report. The kit must be released to law enforcement for storage pursuant to the procedure discussed below. Under this bill, the process required when an adult victim elects not to report an alleged offense, following a forensic medical examination, is revised by requiring a healthcare provider to give the victim: (1) An identifying number place on the victim's kit; (2) Information regarding where and how long the kit will be held; (3) Information regarding how to make a police report; (4) Information regarding the TBI electronic tracking system as discussed below; (5) Contact information for local rape crisis centers; and (6) Rights of a victim of sexually oriented crime as discussed below. Under present law, law enforcement must, within 60 days, take possession of the kit with the victim's name affixed to it and submit it to the Tennessee bureau of investigation (TBI) or to another qualified laboratory for serology or DNA testing. Upon receipt of the kit, the law enforcement agency must store the kit for three years or until the victim makes a police report, whichever occurs first. Once the victim makes a police report, the law enforcement agency has 60 days from the date of the report to send the kit to the state crime lab or another qualified lab for serology or DNA testing. Present law prohibits the sending of kits to the state lab prior to the victim making a police report. This bill revises the time requirements regarding collection and storing of victim's kits: (1) Law enforcement must submit a kit to the TBI or other qualified lab within 30 days, instead of 60 days, of collecting it; (2) Law enforcement must hold a kit for 10 years, instead of three years, or until the victim makes a police report; and (3) Law enforcement must send the kit to a qualified lab for testing within 30 days, instead of 60 days, of the victim making a police report. This bill also: (1) Requires law enforcement agencies and qualified labs to participate in the electronic tracking system, created by this bill (discussed below). After receiving a kit, the law enforcement agency must provide a tracking number for the kit, information regarding the electronic tracking system, and information regarding the victim's right to receive a copy of the kit's report. A law enforcement agency must enter a kit received from a healthcare provider into the electronic tracking system within 10 days of receipt. Information regarding the location and status of the kit must be updated by law enforcement agencies or qualified labs. After receiving receipt of a DNA report from the TBI on the victim's kit, pursuant to DNA procedures for collection and preservation of human specimens, the law enforcement agency must notify the victim of a match and provide the victim with a copy of the report generated by the TBI. If disclosure of the report would compromise investigation, the law enforcement agency must provide a copy of the report to the victim at the end of the investigation; (2) Prohibits the use of a victim's kit to prosecute a victim for any misdemeanor offense or any offense relating to drugs. Additionally, a kit must not be used as a basis for further evidence of any unrelated misdemeanor offense or any offense relating to drugs that may have been committed by the victim; (3) Creates a provision of rights for victims of sexually oriented crimes guaranteed during criminal procedures. For the purposes of this provision, sexually oriented crimes means aggravated rape, statutory rape, rape of a child, sexual battery by an authority figure, aggravated rape of a child, and statutory rape by an authority figure. This bill provides that a victim of a sexually oriented crime has the right to: (A) Consult with a crime victim advocate from a crime assistance program or a victim-witness coordinator as any stage of the criminal proceeding; (B) Have a support person, chosen by the victim, present during any forensic medical examination or interview with law enforcement, prosecuting attorney, the defendant or the defendant's attorney; (C) Be interviewed by a law enforcement officer of the gender the victim chooses, if readily available; (D) Be informed by the appropriate agency of a change in the status of the victim's case, including whether the case has been closed or reopened; (E) Receive a copy of the complete report of the victim's kit generated by the TBI or qualified lab unless disclosure would impede or compromise the investigation; (F) Be informed of potential disposal of the victim's kit or other evidence and be able to request a retention of the evidence; and (G) Request retention of the evidence for an additional 12 months or for an agreed upon period of time; (4) Requires the victim to keep current information regarding the victim's location to enable contact from the appropriate agency; and (5) Requires the TBI to develop and implement an electronic system that tracks the location and lab analysis status of each kit released to law enforcement agencies at the conclusion of a forensic medical examination on or after July 1, 2022. The electronic system must have capacity to allow a victim to track the location and status of the victim's kit by a tracking number provided to the victim. The victim must be able to use the tracking number by imputing the tracking number into an online system to determine the location and status of the kit. The TBI must create a pamphlet to explain how to use and access the electronic system. Records and information within the electronic system will be confidential. ON APRIL 12, 2021, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND PASSED SENATE BILL 1035, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #1 revises various provisions of this bill, as follows: (1) Changes, from 48 hours to seven days, the time within which a law enforcement agency must pick up or hold a kit for storage or transmission after being notified by the healthcare provider; (2) Adds that once a victim makes a police report, the law enforcement agency must change the kit status in the system prior to submitting the kit to the state crime lab or other similar qualified laboratory for either serology or DNA testing; (3) Changes, from 30 days to 45 days, the time within which law enforcement must submit a kit to the TBI or other qualified lab and the time within which law enforcement must send a kit to a qualified lab for testing; (4) Requires that the pamphlet explain the victim's right to receive "testing status updates" instead of "a copy of the forensic analysis report"; (5) Rewrites the bill's provisions regarding requirements following the receipt of DNA data analysis. This amendment requires, upon receipt of DNA data analysis results from the TBI or similar qualified laboratory, the investigating agency to, upon a victim's request and within a reasonable time, notify the victim of whether a DNA sample was obtained from the analysis and whether the analysis resulted in a match to a DNA profile in state or federal databases, unless disclosure of the information would impede or compromise the investigation; (6) Specifies a victim of a sexually-oriented crime has rights listed above in the bill summary "upon request"; (7) Revises the right to receive the complete report (as described above in the bill summary in item (3)(E)) to instead provide for the right to be notified when the investigating agency has received results of the medical forensic evidence DNA analysis from the TBI or other similar qualified laboratory; (8) Adds the right to be informed of whether a DNA sample was obtained from the analysis and whether the analysis resulted in a match to a DNA profile in state or federal database unless disclosure would impede or compromise the investigation; (9) Removes the statement that the victim's rights provision applies if practical and if the presence of the crime victim advocate, victim-witness coordinator, or support person does not cause any unnecessary delay in the investigation or prosecution of the case. This amendment also removes the statement that the role of the crime victim advocate, victim-witness coordinator, or support person is to provide emotional support to the victim; (11) Replaces the requirement that the TBI "develop" an electronic system that tracks the location and laboratory analysis of each kit and to instead require the TBI to "procure" such a system; and (12) Renames the bill to be the "Jim Coley Protection for Rape Survivors Act." ON APRIL 27, 2021, THE HOUSE SUBSTITUTED HOUSE BILL 39 FOR SENATE BILL 1035, ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1, AND PASSED SENATE BILL 1035, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #1 changes the time within which law enforcement must submit a kit to the TBI or qualified lab, as applicable, back to 30 days (instead of 45 days as provided in Senate Amendment #1).