Latest News

APRIL 26, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Jennifer Horn - 603.440.3070

Marsy's Law Fight to Protect Victims’ Rights in Constitution Continues

NH AUTO DEALERS ASSOCIATION ENDORSES MARSY’S LAW

NHADA Joins Growing Network of Support for Constitutional Amendment for Crime Victims’ Rights in New Hampshire

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Amanda Grady Sexton (603) 548-9377

NORTHEAST DELTA DENTAL ENDORSES MARSY’S LAW

Northeast Delta Dental Joins Broad Coalition in Supporting CACR 22.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Amanda Grady Sexton (603) 548-9377

JOINT HOUSE COMMITTEE IGNORES SURVIVOR TESTIMONY, REJECTS CACR 22

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Amanda Grady Sexton (603) 548-9377

NH’S SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINER PROGRAM & THE NH VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAMPUS CONSORTIUM ENDORSE MARSY’S LAW

Professionals working with survivors across New Hampshire announce their support for CACR 22.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Amanda Grady Sexton (603) 548-9377

They say that anyone can become a victim of a crime at any time. I didn’t understand just how true was until I was drugged and sexually assaulted in June of 2008. 

Following the assault, I immediately went to a hospital to have a medical forensic exam done and I reported the crime to law enforcement. By the end of the summer my perpetrator was arrested and charged with aggravated felonious sexual assault. Soon after, more women came forward with similar encounters with the same man.

After months of waiting, I found out that this perpetrator would accept a plea deal that minimized his crimes to misdemeanor level simple assault. 

I never had the chance to confer with a prosecutor about the plea deal that was offered, weigh on the case, or speak to the court about the impact that this man’s actions had on me or the risk he posed to the public’s safety.

The rights afforded to victims of crime under CACR 22, specifically the Constitutional right to privacy and the Constitutional right to be heard, would have changed my experience with the New Hampshire’s criminal justice system. I became a victim when my caring and cheerful daughter Lizzi was murdered and raped in Dover, New Hampshire in 2012. Three and a half years after she was murdered, my family’s lives were again turned upside down when the murderer appealed his conviction to the New Hampshire Supreme Court and argued that private, unsubstantiated information about Lizzi, sealed during the trial, should be made public.

The Court was very clear when it ruled: Lizzi’s statutory rights were not absolute and in the circumstances of my daughter’s case, the public’s constitutional right to information trumped Lizzi’s statutory right to privacy and required the unsealing of the court record. It didn't matter that the Victims Bill of Rights includes "The right to be treated with fairness and respect for their dignity and privacy".

Without constitutional protections, the next victim in my position will be forced to hear that their statutory rights are inferior to the constitutional rights that both the defendant and the public enjoy.

I am many things: a mother, a wife, and a City Councilor in the City of Somersworth. I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. While it doesn’t define me, this experience has in many ways shaped who I am as a person, and the way I see the world.

As a survivor, I know what it is to feel invisible, and to feel like you don’t matter. None of us ever choose to be a victim, and you never expect that it will happen to you.

My name is Tiffany and I’m a sexual assault survivor. After struggling in silence, I finally found the strength to come forward and hold my offender accountable. Unfortunately, my participation in the criminal justice system was to become my re-victimization. Even though I was the one that been violated, I was the one that was still dealing with the aftermath of the violence and the assault; I had no voice in the process.

Recently, I testified in support of CACR 22 - Marsy's Law for NH - in front of a joint House committee that later vote to kill this important amendment without even considering fixes that addressed their concerns. I wish the committee was more careful to listen and weigh everyones testimony and if the was more careful to listen and weigh everyones testimony and if the consensus is they did not hear from victims how Marsy's Law would change anything for them they really did not listen.