By Jordan Meier
Missouri News Network
JEFFERSON CITY — Caitlin Ryan has been an ally for sexual assault victims since she was 11, when her childhood friend confided in her that she had been raped on a family vacation.
“My adolescent self just felt this complete helplessness. Here was my friend in so much pain, and there was nothing that I could do to make things right for her,” Ryan told state lawmakers Wednesday.
Since then, Ryan has gone on to be a national voice for those who are victims of sexual violence. She helped organize the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, which is the largest single-day mass protest in United States history.
“The women’s march was a day for women and allies to come together, to stand together against hatred, misogyny and violence,” Ryan said. “For many of us, it made us feel a little less alone, a little bit less afraid and a bit stronger.”
But that day had a dark ending, Ryan said. One of her male volunteers, who was 30 years older than her, forcibly grabbed and kissed her on the month. Ryan said she was disgusted and humiliated.
“I felt alone and afraid, and that strength I had felt earlier in the day was just gone,” Ryan said.
Ryan is one of millions of people who has been sexually assaulted in the United States, and in recent years, action has been taken across the country to address sexual assault and give voice to the victims. On Wednesday, Missouri lawmakers took a step to do that.
Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville, presented SB 812, known as the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, to the Senate’s Seniors, Families and Children Committee. Sater said he sponsored this bill to help victims of these crimes feel more comfortable coming forward.
“Its goal is to give a sense of security for the victims and to ensure that they know, going forward, they are being heard,” Sater said.
The bill outlines many rights that victims have during the process of reporting a sexual crime. These include rights during evidentiary collection and medical procedures, rights during interviews with law enforcement officers and rights to protection against the person who assaulted them.
The bill also specifically prohibits any collected forensic evidence from being used to prosecute the victim for a misdemeanor crime.
Additionally, it prohibits the victims from being required to take a polygraph exam as a precursor to filing a claim, and it ensures that the victim has the right at any point during the proceedings to read a victim impact statement.
Ryan said the bill is important to ensuring justice for all those in Missouri who are victims of these types of crimes.
“Access to justice should not depend on your ZIP code,” Ryan said.
Bronwyn Bedrick, a resident of St. Louis, said the bill is important to giving victims back what they lost when assaulted.
“Assault takes away a survivor’s control, agency and self-determination. The right protected in SB 812 can help survivors regain some of that control,” Bedrick said.
Sater said he hoped that some of these outlined rights would also help with the backlog of rape kits in the state. The bill includes measures to keep victims informed on the progress of an investigation.
“Survivors I believe to have a right to a prompt analysis of these kits. I know there is a backlog right now; we need to get that straightened out,” Sater said.
The bill also commissions the attorney general to act against any person or entity that willfully fails to comply with the rights outlined in the bill, and it establishes the Missouri Rights of Victims of Sexual Assault Task Force, which would work to collect data in Missouri related to “sexual assault reporting, arrest, prosecution rates (and) access to sexual assault victim’s services.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, nearly a dozen other states have already passed similar laws guaranteeing rights to victims of sexual violence. These state bills mirror the federal Survivors’ Bill of Rights that was signed into law in 2016.
Online stalking On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee heard a bill that would expand the stalking law to include online stalking. HB 1341, sponsored by Rep. Lane Roberts, R-Joplin, would expand the current language of Missouri law to accommodate technological advances that have changed the nature of stalking and to anticipate future advances that would alter the nature of the crime as well.
Roberts said that the law currently has a very limited definition of stalking, and this expansion would help victims get justice and peace.
“The problem today is that technology has proliferated beyond what anyone would have thought 10 or 15 years ago, and victims of these stalking crimes, when they look to law enforcement for help, law enforcement finds itself without the ability,” Roberts said.
While the members of the committee agreed that the problem needs to be addressed, they worried the language was far too broad.
“I worry about laws that are written so broadly that they capture what are fairly ordinary human occurrences,” Rep. Phil Christofanelli, R-St. Peters, said.
Roberts said he made the language intentionally broad because stalking is a broad crime and the current law is too narrowly tailored.
“Unless we deal with this broadly,” Roberts said, “all of the what-ifs become the exceptions, by which people manipulate the law.”