Memphis faces lawsuit over 14,000 untested sexual assault kits

JACKSON, Tenn. — A lawsuit heard today, April 9, could impact thousands of Tennessee sexual assault victims.

The city of Memphis comes before the Tennessee Court of Appeals in Jackson today to appeal a class action lawsuit over more than 14-thousand sexual assault kits or ‘S-A-K’s’ that went untested for decades.

“That inventory went back to S-A-K’s (sexual assault kits) that dated back to 1985 which was many years before DNA evidence was routinely used by law enforcement for any purpose and 17 years before the Combined DNA Index System, that’s ‘CODIS’, became available to Tennessee law enforcement,” said Jonathan Lakey, Appellant Counsel.

Last year, a judge issued a final order that the city of Memphis would have to stand trial, ruling in favor of a class action lawsuit which means approximately 10-thousand individuals are included in the lawsuit.

“It does not explain why they could submit ‘no suspect’ cases after 2002 they did not. They allowed this backlog to continue to build up,” said Gary K. Smith, Appellee Counsel.

This resulted in some victims not being submitted for testing for nearly two decades after the issue had been exposed and after the statutes of limitations had run out.

The lawsuit was filed in 2014 after the Memphis Police Department announced in 2013 that these sexual assault kits were left untested dating back to the 1980’s.

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