Testing of all rape kits would be mandatory under a bill that Friday passed the Utah House 69-0.
HB200 now goes to the Senate for further consideration.
Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored the bill, which would give Utah's law enforcement agencies 30 days to submit rape kits to the Utah Crime Lab, with testing required by a to-be-determined deadline.
It would also create a tracking system for rape kits and trauma-sensitivity training for Utah law enforcement. However, legislative analysts say it will cost $2.4 million a year to hire the necessary extra lab technicians.
The House vote comes after several rape victims testified in emotional hearings that they waited 10 years or more with their kits yet to be tested, and rapists prosecuted.
Utah officials have previously identified an estimated 2,700 rape kits tests that have gone unsubmitted and untested.
Jay Henry, director of the crime lab, earlier testified that about half of those have now been tested, and suspect DNA information in each case has been entered into the Combined DNA Index System, a federal database of DNA evidence. In those cases, they have seen identification hits in CODIS 134 times, he said.
Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune Rep. Angela Romero visits outside the house, after HB 200, the Sexual Assault Kit Processing bill was passed on the floor of the house, at the Capitol, Friday, February 17, 2017.
