Class Action Lawsuit Seeks Justice for Sexual Assault Survivors

Three local sexual assault survivors on Monday filed a federal class action lawsuit against the City of Austin, Travis County, District Attorney Margaret Moore, her predecessor Rosemary Lehmberg, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, his predecessor Art Acevedo, and Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, alleging that years of failures at APD’s crime lab and at the District Attorney’s Office have resulted in Travis County women who have been sexually assaulted facing gender discrimination by government officials, being denied equal access to justice and protection of the law, and being “failed” by those “sworn to protect them.”

Plaintiffs Amy Smith (a pseudonym), Austin Community College Trustee Julie Ann Nitsch, and Marina Conner filed on behalf of “all women” who’ve been raped in Travis County and were “adversely affected” by local law enforcement. It argues that malpractice on behalf of the government entities indicates there is “overwhelmingly no justice” in a system that allows sexual assault offenders to “walk freely to rape again.” Citing actions, behavior patterns, decision-making history, and departure from normal procedure, the plaintiffs contend that local law enforcement has committed “constitutional violations” by rejecting equal protection rights, failing to protect survivors’ personal privacy and dignity against “unwarranted state intrusion,” and by not timely or accurately testing rape kits.

The suit argues the following:

1) Sexual assault disproportionately affects women. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five adult women – and one in 71 men – will be raped in their lifetime.

2) Sexual assault is rarely prosecuted. The suit alleges that while over 1,000 Travis County women are victims of sexual assault each year, fewer than 10 cases get prosecuted. Specifically, from July 2016 through June 2017, the D.A.’s Office accepted 77 of the 224 cases offered for prosecution, and only one case, involving a male victim (of a “serial rapist who had previously raped multiple women”), went to trial.

3) Survivors are often victim blamed by those intended to protect them. Nitsch alleges that in 2010 a man broke into her house and raped her while she was sleeping, and that afterwards APD officers asked her “how much she had to drink, what she’d been wearing, and why she lived in a bad neighborhood.”

Read more: https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2018-06-19/class-action-lawsuit-seeks-justice-for-sexual-assault-survivors/