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Comment by smadge | Hacker News Reader

The article doesn’t say anything about the legal team claiming the DNA is protected by HIPAA. The DNA is evidence. The distinction is that it is evidence for a crime in which the woman is a victim, not evidence fro a crime in which she is the perpetrator. One of the issues at stake is that mixing up the two will disincentivize rape victims from reporting the crime committed against them (because the evidence collected to investigate the rape could later be used against them)

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There's also two sets of DNA. I imagine her DNA is not evidence of any crime, only the rapist's. So her DNA is collected coincidentally. Is there any other standard for coincidentally collected evidence?

Say I had a diary and wrote an entry after I was raped, which was then submitted as evidence - could the police look through the rest of my diary and see that I had an entry from 4 years ago about breaking into a house?

Yes, and that's one of the things the fifth can be used for. If you're in this situation, get a good lawyer to negotiate on your behalf.

> I imagine her DNA is not evidence of any crime, only the rapist's.

The entirety of the forensic process is evidence. It's scary that there are people who might think differently. It's a fundamental cornerstone of our Constitutional process.

> Say I had a diary and wrote an entry after I was raped, which was then submitted as evidence - could the police look through the rest of my diary and see that I had an entry from 4 years ago about breaking into a house?

Yes. A person accusing another person of a crime does not get to pick and choose what evidence to turn over.

If you were accused of raping someone, and there were such a diary, would you not want your defense counsel to be able to review the fifteen diary entries previous to that, planning out how to frame you for such a crime?

Sure, that seems relevant. But can you respond to my direct point - if I turn over my diary where I recount being the victim, can the police look at an entry from 5 years before, and use that to charge me with a completely separate crime of breaking and entering?

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