(a) Any forensic scientist, including, but not limited to, any criminalist, toxicologist, and forensic pathologist, or any other employee required to handle or perform DNA or other forensic evidence analysis within the scope of his or her duties, who comes into contact with blood or other bodily fluids on, upon, or through the skin or membranes of his or her person while handling or performing testing on forensic evidence, may petition, ex parte, the court having jurisdiction over the laboratory in which he or she works for an order authorized under this chapter.
The employing agency, officer, or entity of the affected employee may also file an ex parte petition for an order authorized under this chapter. Before filing a petition, the requesting party shall make a reasonable effort to obtain the consent of the person whose blood or bodily fluids is to be tested.
(b) The court shall promptly consider any petition filed pursuant to this section. If the court finds that probable cause exists to believe that a possible transfer of blood, saliva, semen, or other bodily fluid took place between the forensic evidence collected and the forensic scientist, criminalist, toxicologist, forensic pathologist, or any other employee required to handle evidence or perform forensic testing thereon as specified in this section, the court shall promptly order that the existing forensic evidence be tested as provided in this chapter.
(c) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), copies of the test results shall be sent to each requesting employee named in the petition, and his or her employing agency, officer, or entity, to the person whose sample was tested, and to the officer in charge and the chief medical officer of the facility in which the person is incarcerated or detained.
(2) The person whose sample was tested, shall be advised that he or she will be informed of the HIV test results only if he or she wishes to be so informed. If the person declines to be informed of the HIV test results, then he or she shall sign a form documenting that refusal. The person’s refusal to sign that form shall be construed to be a request to be informed of the HIV test results.
(Added by Stats. 2001, Ch. 482, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2002.)
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