Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey wants to eliminate the 15-year time limit for prosecuting rape cases for DNA matches.
Current Massachusetts law prohibits rape prosecutions in older cases, even when DNA testing has identified a suspect.
An investigation last year by WBUR and ProPublica found that almost every other state allows more time than Massachusetts to charge rapes or similar assaults against adults. Many of those 47 states have extended their deadlines in recent decades as DNA technology helped solve old cases and as evidence mounted that police failed to thoroughly investigate rapes.
The WBUR-ProPublica investigation followed the story of Louise, a woman who was raped and stabbed after agreeing to give her a ride in 2005 by a man who said he recognized her from college, according to a police report. Although DNA testing later linked a man accused of multiple assaults to her case, prosecutors had to drop charges against her under Massachusetts law.
(WBUR does not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission. We have agreed to identify Louise by her middle name.)
Healey’s proposal would eliminate the statute of limitations in rape cases where there is DNA evidence.
“With advances in technology, new evidence is collected and tested every day, and we must ensure our justice system keeps pace,” Healey said in a written statement Saturday. “I hope this proposal helps survivors who have had to wait far too long for justice, while improving our ability to hold offenders accountable.” »
The new language is part of Healey’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2027. The provision must pass both houses of the legislature. This would take effect for cases in which the statute of limitations has not yet expired and for future sexual assaults, but it would not affect older cases.
Lawmakers have tried to pass similar proposals every session since 2011, WBUR found, but those efforts failed in part because defense attorneys opposed the changes, saying a longer delay risked violating the defendant’s rights. State Rep. Adam Scanlon, who has introduced legislation to create a DNA exception since 2021, said media attention helped push the issue forward again this year.
He said “Healey’s bill is truly a tribute to victims to ensure that people who find themselves in the same situation will never have to go through the process of allowing someone to get away with an alleged rape when they know – when we know as a society – that DNA evidence links them to this crime.”
The fact that Healey, the former state attorney general, supports the changes gives victims new hope, said Louise, the woman profiled by WBUR as part of its investigation. She was raped and stabbed multiple times, according to a police report. But DNA evidence failed to link his assault to a suspect for 17 years.
“Many of us have not received justice. We will not have that day when we know that our attackers will not understand us,” Louise said.
Prosecutors alleged in 2022 that Louise’s attacker was a serial rapist. The DNA of Ivan Cheung, a Boston-area man who worked in the financial services industry at the time of his arrest, also matched a stabbing and rape that occurred in 2006, according to court records. But that attack was also beyond the state’s statute of limitations at the time the match was made.
Cheung has repeatedly maintained his innocence. His attorney did not respond to WBUR’s requests for comment.
Louise decided to defend survivors like herself after the case against Cheung failed. In June, she testified publicly before a state legislative committee in support of Scanlon’s bill.
She said she was glad the governor heard her voice and those of other survivors.
“I have beautiful family members, young women,” Louise said. “I care about all the young people in the community. I want them all to be safer.”
