(25 May 2021) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4327557
A Kansas woman who alleges consensual sex with a friend in his college dorm room turned into a terrifying sexual assault in which she was repeatedly strangled took matters into her own hands when prosecutors declined to file a sex-crime charge, instead pursuing a battery charge.
Twenty-two-year-old Madison Smith, one of a generation of women emboldened by the #metoo movement to share their stories publicly, used a law that allows citizens to convene grand juries in cases where they believe prosecutors aren't pursuing wrongdoing.
"It is not necessarily that I wanted my name to be out there. It is that I wanted my story to be out there because this happens nationwide, worldwide that victims and survivors are minimized by the prosecutors who don't believe them," said Smith. "And that is not OK because rape culture is so prevalent and we need to get rid of it and one of the ways to do that is to get our stories out there and be heard and fight the system."
Kansas is one of six states that allows citizens to petition for grand juries. The 1887 law was rarely used until anti-abortion activists began using it to force grand jury investigations of abortion clinics. It has since also been used to go after adult bookstores.
But Smith's case, which will be considered in September before grand jurors who will decide whether a sex-crime charge is warranted, is believed to be the first time that someone claiming sexual assault has used it, said Kathy Ray of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence.
Smith says she felt it was the only way she get justice for the February 2018 attack at Bethany College in McPherson County.
The process of seeking a grand jury was far from easy. Smith had to stand in a parking lot telling her story over and over again to strangers to collect hundreds of signatures and then do it again when the first petition was rejected on a technicality.
"That's the hard part," said Smith. "But when you know you're fighting the good fight and you're getting the word out there, you're going to make a change, it makes it a little bit easier. But it's still pretty difficult to tell that over and over again. But you just got to keep that big picture in mind."
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