Donna's Story

In the summer of 2004, while working as a clerk at a gas station in western Pennsylvania, 19-year old Donna (not her real name) was sexually assaulted at gunpoint by an unknown assailant, who also stole money from the cash register. Donna reported the crimes to the local police.

From the start of the investigation, the detectives treated Donna as though she were the perpetrator, despite strong similarities between her assault and a subsequent rape and robbery also investigated by these same detectives. The police charged Donna with theft, receipt of stolen property, and making false reports to law enforcement authorities. Donna spent five days in jail and faced a criminal trial.

Shortly before the trial began, a man was apprehended in a nearby town while committing sexual assault. During the interrogation, he confessed to attacking Donna and robbing the gas station. As a result, all charges against Donna were dropped.

Donna brought a civil rights action against the investigating detectives and the township’s public safety director for violations of her rights. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants. In doing this, the Court held that the detectives had probable cause to believe that Donna has committed the theft and filed a false police report. This conclusion was based on the belief that Donna failed to cooperate with the police, because she returned to work and therefore missed a second interview, declined to take a lie detector test, decided not to seek professional counseling for victims, and failed to press the panic alarm in the gas station while a gun was held to her head during a sexual assault. Donna appealed to the Third Circuit of Court of Appeals.

WOMEN'S WAY grantee the Women’s Law Project (WLP) filed an amicus brief on behalf of 39 nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the criminal justice system’s response to violence against women. The brief supported Donna’s appeal from the District Court’s decision. The case was argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on March 11, 2010.

In a precedent-setting decision, Judge Kent A. Jordan denounced myths about rape and adopted arguments submitted by WLP while reinstating Donna’s civil rights lawsuit. The Township has filed a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, appealing the Third Circuit’s ruling. In the meantime, Donna provided powerful and courageous testimony in the fall of 2010 at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs. The hearing was arranged in response to advocacy by WLP.