Rape victim convenes her own grand jury after prosecutors refuse to take up case

A Kansas rape survivor has invoked a 19th-century law to convene her own grand jury after prosecutors refused to pursue a sex-crime charge for three years because she did not withdraw her consent verbally.

Madison Smith, a 22-year-old, recent graduate of Bethany College in Lindsborg, has alleged she was raped by her classmate in a dorm room in 2018. She said the consensual sex with her friend, Jared Stolzenburg, turned into an assault when he started strangling her, making her unable to say “stop.”

The local prosecutors refused to take her case for three years as they were unconvinced that it amounted to rape charges as she did not withdraw her consent verbally during the act.

She has invoked the 1887 frontier law to convene a grand jury that requires a certain number of signatures of support. She told the Washington Post that it was the hardest part as it meant narrating the story to the countless strangers to gather signs.