Yesterday, October 16, 2018, four sexual assault victims – Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3, and Jane Doe 4 – filed a petition in the Utah Supreme Court, asking the Court to appoint a prosecutor to file criminal charges in their cases. Represented by Professor Paul Cassell of the Utah Appellate Clinic (of the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah) and five other attorneys, the Jane Does are challenging the decision by local prosecutors not to file charges in their cases under a new state constitutional theory.
Sexual Assault
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Legal Momentum's Jennifer Becker spoke with New York Magazine's The Cut about the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Senator Dianne Feinstein's decision not to publicize the letter she received from a sexual assault survivor.
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A webinar launching our online victim advocates training course.
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Legal Momentum announces a new online training course, Helping Sexual Assault Victims Navigate the Criminal Justice System, designed to prepare non-lawyer victim advocates to help their clients navigate the criminal justice process.
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Recent immigration policies, including the separation and detention of families entering at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Attorney General’s decision to deny asylum to victims of domestic violence, reinforce existing inequalities that disproportionately impact immigrant women.
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Jennifer Becker is a former sex crimes and child abuse prosecutor and the deputy legal director at Legal Momentum. She says Monday morning’s arraignment is “definitely a big first step for the victims” but cautions that the road to justice could be long.
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Hundreds of women have now publicly accused powerful men in business, government and entertainment of sexual misconduct, and thousands joined the #MeToo social media movement to share stories of sexual harassment or abuse.“There now is a platform and national conversation, and more women and girls feel safe talking about the harassment and violence they’ve been subjected to,” said Jennifer Becker, senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum, a U.S.-based non-profit that works on legal rights for women.
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Jennifer Becker, deputy legal director for Legal Momentum, a New York-based nonprofit women’s legal defense group, said it's hard to buy Brafman's suggestion that the charges were suddenly sprung on the defense given that both sides negotiated the terms of his surrender."They didn’t just show up at his home at dawn and take him into custody," Becker said. "I think that given one of these complaining witnesses has also spoken publicly, unlike a lot of other criminal prosecutions, Mr. Weinstein has had a lot of notice that he was being investigated."
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While Lynn Hecht Schafran, an expert in gender issues affecting courts and the senior vice president of Legal Momentum’s Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York, says she’s “very pleased” with the jury’s decision, she isn’t as optimistic about a legal sea change.“What concerns me is that we’ve not set another barrier that victims of these kinds of crimes may have to leap over,” Hecht Schafran tells PEOPLE. “How will people react to situations where there was only one victim, as there was in the prior trial?”