Barteau, S.J.
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Quinn has preserved one issue for appellate review: whether the [Class B felony] charges of child molesting and criminal confinement are barred by the statute of limitations.
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On the night of March 5, 1988, ten-year-old E.F. was asleep on a couch in the living room of her family’s house in Elkhart County. E.F.’s parents were not at home, and E.F.’s brother was asleep in another room. Suddenly, Quinn forced open the front door, … carried [E.F.] outside[,] … drove away [with her, raped her, then released her at a store next to her house]….
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E.F. and her family members regularly spoke with the police for several months, but the investigation was hampered by a lack of leads. In July 1988, the sheriff’s department put the case in inactive status, meaning that no further investigation would be undertaken absent new information. …
Meanwhile, an officer had delivered the sexual assault evidence kit, two pairs of E.F.’s underpants, her nightgown, the washcloth, and the toilet tissue to the Indiana State Police Laboratory (the Lab) on March 10, 1988. … Several pieces of evidence had seminal fluid or spermatozoa on them, but at that time the Lab had no testing procedures that could link those substances with a specific person.
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In September 2011, E.F. contacted Elkhart County officials about her case, looking for medical information. She was put in touch with [one of the original detectives], who * * * contacted an acquaintance at the Lab to see if the Lab still had any of the evidence from E.F.’s case. … In June 2012, [lab personnel] tested the [retained evidence] and … and found a match with Quinn, whose DNA profile was already on CODIS.
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At the time that the State charged Quinn [in March 2013], Indiana Code section 35-41-4-2 (2009) provided, in relevant part:
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(b) A prosecution for a Class B or Class C felony that would otherwise be barred under this section may be commenced within one (1) year after the earlier of the date on which the state:
(1) first discovers evidence sufficient to charge the offender with the offense through DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis; or
(2) could have discovered evidence sufficient to charge the offender with the offense through DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis by the exercise of due diligence.
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… Quinn argues that the State failed to act with due diligence in discovering the DNA evidence that led the State to charge him with child molesting and criminal confinement. He concludes that the State failed to comply with Indiana Code section 35-41-4-2(b), and those charges should be dismissed.
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Quinn notes that the State has had the [evidence] since 1988, and the State took his DNA through buccal swabs in 2001 and 2003 in relation to other criminal cases. He contends that there is no reason why the State could not have created a DNA profile from the [retained evidence in this case] and uploaded it to CODIS years ago, thereby discovering Quinn’s identity much sooner. He concludes that the State’s delay was unreasonable.
The key inquiry for due diligence is whether the State’s efforts to identify Quinn through DNA testing were reasonable under the circumstances. Here, although the State possessed [the evidence] containing Quinn’s DNA in 1988, [its] continued existence was a matter of happenstance because … retention … was left to the discretion of individual analysts ….
The … Lab does not have the resources to proactively examine every sub-item in its vault to see if a DNA profile can be created. There are thousands of sub-items in the Lab’s vault, and given staffing realities, Lab personnel act in response to requests from law enforcement agencies.
In addition, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department does not have the resources to leave every case open and routinely investigate them all. Instead, the Department places cases on inactive status once all avenues of investigation have been exhausted, subject to reactivating them when new information comes in. Although the Department’s employees occasionally look at inactive cases, there is no formal policy or set schedule for such reexaminations.
When E.F. called Elkhart County officials for information about her case, she was by chance connected with … one of the original detectives in the case, who had since retired and … happened to have a contact at the Lab who was able to begin the search for the [retained evidence]. If E.F. had contacted county officials five or ten years earlier, the same connections may have been made and may have led to the same investigative outcome, but perhaps not. The possibility that different policies or investigation techniques could have led to Quinn’s identification years earlier does not compel a conclusion that the State acted unreasonably here.
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Under the facts and circumstances of this case, the State’s employees acted reasonably in the manner in which they maintained, discovered, and tested the DNA evidence that led to Quinn’s convictions, thereby establishing the due diligence requirement of Indiana Code section 35-41-4-2(b). Quinn’s request to vacate his child molesting and confinement convictions must fail.
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Barnes, J., and Bradford, J., concur.