I recently read in the Strongsville Post, the account of Alexis Martin, a 15-year-old sex trafficking victim, who was arrested and sentenced to 20 years for a crime she didn’t commit. Although others testified that she wasn’t in the room where the murder took place, prosecutors misrepresented what she did and accused her of creating the situation for the crime to occur.
Making matters worse, an inexperienced defense attorney assigned to her, was not aware of the legal protections she should have been afforded. Compounding the problem, when she appealed her case in 2016 and 2018, she was turned down each time because her original attorney hadn’t provided enough evidence in the original trial.
The article, written by Jessica Contrera of The Washington Post, is replete with multiple law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges that didn’t understand human trafficking laws and protections for anyone under 18 being forced to commit sex acts.
It’s a long read, but highly recommended for anyone interested in how young people are caught up in “the system” which still fails to protect them. Even today, she is still wearing an ankle tracing braclet, because Governor DeWine feels she needs to be monitored until her original term of imprisonment expires in 2034. That’s not right.
You can voice your displeasure by writing the Governor as I did here: https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/contact
Please do the same – write your own note – and let’s see if we can’t get Alexis a clean start. Thanks.
Photo by Diego Carneiro on Unsplash
