Class Action: Austin, Texas Fails to Pursue Rape Victims’ Claims

A group of women from Austin, Texas have filed a class action lawsuit against the city, Travis County, the county’s current and former district attorney, the current and former Austin police chief, and the county’s sheriff alleging that they failed rape victims by dismissing claims and not pursuing leads.

The rape victims class action claims that the city and county justice system repeatedly failed victims of sexual assault who “have been denied equal access to justice and equal protection of the law.”

Plaintiff Amy Smith (pseudonym) was a University of Texas student in 2008 when she was reportedly kidnapped and repeatedly raped in a hotel room.

After Smith was released, she says she reported her rape to the Austin police. The police allegedly misidentified her rapist as a Hispanic man with a DNA testing error.

In 2009, after DNA evidence from a rape kit identified her true rapist, he was charged with kidnapping and rape but the case did not progress.

The charges were refiled in 2014 but the county allegedly did not pursue the case “to avoid having to explain the initial flawed DNA analysis to a jury.”

Smith also claims that the police department suggested that she was lying about her rape, and that this experience is not unique. Officers at the Austin police department allegedly feature a wall of photos of rape victims who they have determined to be lying.

“Officers posted pictures of these ‘debunked’ female accusers on the wall as a matter of pride, as trophies of their ‘investigations,’” the plaintiffs claim in their class action.

According to the rape victims class action, less than 10 cases of sexual assault are prosecuted in Travis County yearly. This number is astonishing low considering that more than 1,000 women report sexual assault in the county every year, the class action argues.

“In short, the women of Travis County have been failed by the people sworn to protect them—the government officials and actors who have instead disbelieved, dismissed, and denigrated female victims of sexual assault, failed to have DNA evidence tested for years at a time, and refused to investigate or prosecute cases of sexual assault against female survivors because juries purportedly do not like ‘he said, she said’ cases,” the rape victims class action states.

Plaintiffs seek to represent a Class of all women who were sexually assaulted in Travis County, Texas, reported their assault, underwent invasive testing, and were affected by the county’s policy of dismissing rape victims’ claims. The rape victims class action seeks injunctive relief, punitive damages, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

The plaintiffs are represented by Jennifer R. Ecklund, Mackenzie S. Wallace, and Elizabeth Myers of Thompson & Knight LLP.

The Austin, Texas Sexual Assault Class Action Lawsuit is Smith, et al. v. City of Austin, et al., Case No. 1:18-cv-00505-LY, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.