Columbia University senior Emma Sulkowicz, 21, says she was raped in her own bed at the beginning of her sophomore year. This week, two years after the alleged assault, Sulkowicz, a visual-arts major, has made a promise to carry her mattress around campus every day as part of her senior thesis. It is, she says, a symbol of the burden sexual-assault survivors carry with them every day.
“The act of carrying the mattress from inside my room out into the light has mirrored the way my life has changed, as I’ve brought my personal story out into the light,” Sulkowicz told TIME. “This project is a way to heal one of the most difficult things that happened to me. As I will build muscle and get stronger, hopefully I will also build emotional strength.”
Sulkowicz started the performance-art project on Tuesday, and she said she is determined to continue carrying the mattress wherever she goes — to class, the library, the gym — as long as her alleged rapist is still on campus. That means her project could last until graduation day in May 2015 — unless her alleged assailant is either expelled or chooses to leave the school. Last year, Sulkowicz and two other women reported the same person to the university. All three cases were dismissed.
Yeah, the grand jury thing is particularly damning.
For the unaware: The old joke among criminal defense lawyers is that a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich for murder if the District Attorney wants them to. The GJ is strictly an arm of the DA’s office, and a failure to indict basically always means the DA didn’t want to prosecute them. The DA has full control over what evidence the GJ gets to (or in this case, doesn’t get to) see.
The evidence they present doesn’t need to stand up to court scrutiny, because the GJ isn’t held to the same standards for evidence. The DA could basically scribble a “lol yeah I definitely did it -{Suspect}” note on a napkin and present it to the GJ as evidence of a confession. The fact that it won’t hold up in court doesn’t matter, because the GJ isn’t ruling on guilt. They’re just ruling on whether or not the DA has enough evidence to bother with a trial.
The DA can even withhold exculpatory evidence that would prove the suspect’s innocence, if they think the suspect can’t afford a good lawyer and they want to try and force the suspect into taking a plea deal. That is particularly common when they just need to close a particularly hot case, and they don’t really care who actually did the crime. They’ll basically frame some poor schmuck who has a good alibi, in the hopes that the person’s public defender talks them into taking a plea deal before it ever goes to trial.
“So why bother with all of this” I can already hear some of you typing… The answer is very simple: It’s because the DA is an elected position, and needs to consider their public image when deciding whether or not to prosecute a case. For example, let’s say a cop kills a dude in the street. It’s on camera from 20 different angles. The public is out for blood. And it’s election season, so the DA’s public image is under a spotlight right now. But the police union has privately told the DA that if they prosecute the cop for murder, CSI will stop collecting evidence at crime scenes, and officers will suddenly refuse to testify as witnesses in the DA’s trials. This puts the DA in a bit of a pickle. Do they hold to what their electors want (and risk letting future criminals walk free), just to prosecute the one cop? Or do they let the cop walk away, angering the public and likely losing their upcoming election?
Enter the Grand Jury. The GJ is a super convenient scapegoat. They’re a shadowy group of faceless individuals, with no public presence and no way to defend themselves or justify their decisions. Their only job is to do what the DA wants them to do. The DA doesn’t want to prosecute this cop, but also wants to win their election. So the DA does something supremely scummy: They tell the public that they’re bringing the case to the GJ… And then they don’t actually bring any evidence for the GJ. The GJ can only rule on the evidence that was presented, and since the DA has full control over the evidence, they can withhold everything. So the GJ naturally refuses to indict, because there is an overwhelming lack of evidence.
And now the DA can jump in front of the news cameras, and yell about “I tried so hard to prosecute this case, but the big mean GJ refused to indict and now my hands are tied. But remember, I tried to fight for what you wanted! I heard your cries for justice, and did everything I could to prosecute that big mean killer cop. Vote for me!”
Again, the GJ can’t refute that statement, because they’re not publicly known. The GJ can’t go “hey uhh you actually didn’t bring a single fucking shred of evidence.” They can’t go “we actually would have indicted if you had actually tried.” They can’t go “you’re a lying sack of shit who is using us as a scapegoat.” The DA gets control of the evidence, but they also get control of the narrative.
So any time you see a DA claiming to be building a case for the GJ and then the GJ fails to indict, remember that it was because the DA didn’t want to charge them.