Gov. Healey proposes eliminating deadline to prosecute rapes when there's a DNA match

Gov. Maura Healey wants to eliminate the 15-year deadline to prosecute rape in cases with a DNA match. The proposal is part of her budget recommendation for the 2027 fiscal year.

Current Massachusetts law bars rape prosecutions in older cases, even when DNA testing has identified a suspect.

An investigation last year by WBUR and ProPublica found that nearly all other states allow more time to charge rapes or similar assaults of adults than Massachusetts.

Many of those 47 states extended their deadlines in recent decades as DNA technology helped solve old cases, and as evidence mounted that police had failed to fully investigate rape cases.

The WBUR and ProPublica investigation followed the story of Louise, a woman who said she was raped and stabbed after accepting a ride in 2005 from a man who said he recognized her from college. (WBUR does not identify victims of sexual assault without their permission. We agreed to identify Louise by her middle name.)

Although DNA testing would later connect a man accused of multiple assaults to her case, prosecutors had to drop charges in her assault under Massachusetts’ statute.

Healey's proposal would eliminate the statute of limitations for rape cases when DNA evidence exists, allowing for prosecutions in cases where a match is made after the current 15 year cutoff.

“With technological advances, new evidence is being collected and tested every day, and we need to make sure our judicial system keeps pace,” Healey said in a written statement. “I hope this proposal will help survivors who have had to wait far too long for justice, while also improving our ability to hold offenders accountable."

The provision must pass both chambers of the Legislature. It would take effect for cases in which the statute of limitations has not expired, and future sexual assaults, but would not affect older cases.

Legislators have tried unsuccessfully to pass similar proposals every session since 2011, WBUR found, but those efforts have failed in part because defense attorneys have opposed changes, saying a longer deadline risks violating the rights of the accused.

State Rep. Adam Scanlon, who has introduced legislation to create a DNA exception since 2021, said media attention is helping push the issue forward.

He said Healey’s “bill is really a testament to victims to ensure that folks that are in the same situation never have to go through the process of seeing somebody being able to walk away from an alleged rape when they know — when we know as a society — that DNA evidence connects them to that crime.”

Healey's clout as the former top law enforcement officer of the state may give the proposal more of a chance of becoming law.

Louise, the woman featured in WBUR and ProPublica's investigation, said the governor's backing gives new hope for victims.

“ There are several of us that have missed out on having justice. We won't get to have that day when we know that our perpetrators are not going to get us,” Louise said.

Prosecutors alleged in 2022 that Louise’s attacker was a serial rapist. DNA from Ivan Cheung, a Boston-area man who worked in the financial services industry at the time of his arrest, also matched a 2006 stabbing and rape, court records show. But that attack was also beyond the state’s statute of limitations by the time the match was made.

Cheung has repeatedly maintained his innocence. His attorney did not reply to WBUR’s requests for comment.

Louise decided to advocate for survivors like her after Cheung’s prosecution failed. In June, she testified publicly before a state legislative committee in support of Scanlon's bill.

She said she’s glad that the governor heard the voices of her and other survivors.

"I have beautiful family members, young women," Louise said. "I care about all the youth in the community. I want them all safer."