What about the civil rights of the patients who we KNOW have been entrusted to the care of a rapist? This isn’t a huge facility; there probably aren’t more than a couple dozen guys—if that—who could be responsible for this rape. I wouldn’t entrust one of my loved ones to a facility like that if I knew there was at least a one-in-eight chance that a rapist would be working one of their shifts that day.
I understand why an innocent person might not want their DNA retained indefinitely in a police database but it certainly seems reasonable to request employees to voluntarily submit to testing for exculpatory purposes on the condition that the information would be discarded afterward. You don’t share voluntarily? Fine, but you’re part of a shrinking pool of suspects and probably out of a job.
Right; it’s important to catch the guy but arguably even more important to make sure he isn’t still in a position to continue abusing patients right now.
Civil rights isn’t a competition, though. Everybody gets them (or should), regardless of whether they are a victim or a perpetrator. We might not like that on an emotional level. Believe me, I’m not immune to a little thrill when watching a police procedural in which the cops violate a suspect’s rights–and of course the suspect happens to be the killer/rapist/whatever–and somehow get a conviction anyway. But our justice system is supposed to be better than how we would react based on emotions to a despicable crime. And I would much rather this dirtbag get convicted and have that conviction stick instead of being overturned by someone making–in my opinion–a legit argument that a DNA-testing sweep was unconstitutional. Nor do I want to see innocent people get hurt because they understandably don’t trust the police.
I teach college. As a condition of my employment I regularly have to submit to fingerprint-based screenings to make sure I’m not a known sex offender or other violent criminal. And I don’t even teach minors, nor have I ever been suspected of a crime. I get it; I’m entrusted with a measure of power and authority that I could theoretically abuse, so part of the trade-off is submitting my biometric information.
In this case we KNOW that one of the men working at this facility (or who worked there recently) is not only a rapist, but a rapist who abused his position to assault an incredibly vulnerable person who had been entrusted to his care. That seems like something that warrants increased expectations for screenings to me.
We don’t know that it’s an employee. Presumably there are many delivery drivers, contractors, and family members of patients that visit. Would I say the chances of it being an employee is slightly more likely? Probably, but I wouldn’t stake my retirement on it. An outside contractor, who would be a stranger to the staff and not being paid much attention to, might just as easily take advantage.
If the facility is negligent enough to provide unknown outside contractors enough privacy to rape their patients without being noticed then the whole place needs to get shut down.
Agreed, although being shut down in the case of an employee rapist vs. an unsupervised contractor rapist is probably splitting hairs. There’s a big problem either way.
An actual employee of the facility is going to have a much easier time accessing and abusing patients without attracting any attention than any external contractor, or a relative/friend of one of the staff, which is another highly implausible scenario you suggested upthread.
I’ve never understood the apparent need that some people feel to play the role of the devil’s advocate to the point that they gleefully give deeply serious consideration to that which is improbable, at best.
I could be wrong, but isn’t there similar things done for medical care?
Pretty sure any outside contractor has to be subjected to the same scrutiny that the rest of the staff would be under. Or are you talking like the Culligan man? Because even then, while people DO tend to ignore others going about their job, they don’t ignore them when there are not where they are supposed to be. (ie. A patient room, or the place where they keep drugs.)
And to expand on the myriad of your posts - I get and appreciate the wariness of blanket DNA test as a violation of civil rights. But you’re violating Occam’s Razor and not doing your point justice by also offering very unlikely (though physically possible) scenarios.
A rape occurred. There should be some basic work done to get a group of potential suspects, starting with interviews. I’d interview everyone because even the women may have noticed so-and-so acting oddly. Or they remember seeing them leave the room several times when they didn’t think they had a reason to, etc. At this point I would also ask for people to volunteer swabs.
Then, like I said earlier, you can exclude part of the male group based on some basic knowledge of phenotypes. Like if a dominate trait is presenting in the child, and the mother doesn’t have it, then it must have come from the father. Obviously if the child is white, you can likely excluded any of the black workers etc. Then one can get a warrant for a DNA swab. This isn’t blanket DNA testing, but targeted testing based on an investigation likely to narrow down the culprit. I like the idea someone else posted where the police agree to destroy said test if it turns out negative.
So there is reasonable amount of securing one’s civil rights, but also a reasonable amount of obtaining evidence with due process.
Considering the entire Sovereign Citizens movement is made up of people so adamant in their reality-challenged interpretation is common law and the US Constitution that they hoist themselves by their own petard, I’m not surprised people on the internet think they know the law better than the judge who signed the warrants.
Of course, but that wasn’t what I meant. I meant that if the reason for closing or not closing down the place comes down to an argument over whether an employee or negligent supervision of a contractor is worse, I think they’re both equally good reasons for closing the place.
Suppose I have my lawyer order a DNA test for exculpatory purposes. She then retains control of that data at all times. The police can go to her and say, here’s what we’re trying to match, and offer up their data. The comparison can take place in my lawyers office, and there is no reason for her to hang on to the police records, nor the police to hang on to my records, once the meeting is over.
Im thinking of how notorious the FBI is for deliberately taking bad notes during interviews, and then leveraging that against people to force them to snitch.
The solution seems to be insisting the interview take place in ones lawyers office.
So maybe the law office is also a medical laboratory, and maybe the law firm also has doctors on the payroll. There is no legal reason to hand over DNA evidence to the police for them to keep after the case is closed.
Sure, that sounds like a reasonable counteroffer from someone who had privacy concerns but still wanted to help with the investigation. Or even just having your lawyer draft a legal agreement like the one discussed above. That way you’ve still got legal cover even if the cops renege on the agreement and try to use your DNA to tie you to another crime later down the road.
But if your response is just “I care more about avoiding a DNA test under any circumstances than I care about finding this rapist” then don’t act surprised if people start wondering what your deal is.
Wow, you’re like, super optimistic today. I mean the last case I can recall about a guy convicted of rape of an unconscious person only served 3 months
