Module 5
Medical Forensic Sexual Assault Examinations: What Are They, and What Can They Tell the Courts?

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.
Next
Previous

This module will be available to you as soon as you complete Module 1. To complete a module, you must read each of the lessons and complete the review quiz at the end.

It is important to finish Module 1 so that you have sufficient context for the rest of the program. After that, you'll have full access to jump between lessons however works best for you.

Tip: In the left sidebar, you'll notice a vertical bar of squares. Each square represents a lesson in that module. You can see at a glance which lessons you've done (brightly colored) and which ones you have not (gray).

Return to Module 1