Rihanna And Kim Kardashian Have Been Tweeting About This Imprisoned Teen Intercourse Trafficking Victim

Celebrities including Kim Kardashian West and Rihanna had been the sigh of social media this week to name for the originate of Cyntoia Brown, who became once sentenced to existence in detention heart for first-stage abolish in Tennessee in 2004 after she fatally shot a forty three-year-feeble man who had employed her for sex when she became once staunch sixteen.

« Did we by some skill trade the definition of #JUSTICE along the device?? » Rihanna wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. « One thing is horribly corrupt when the system enables these rapists and the sufferer is thrown away for existence! To every of you accountable for this little one’s sentence I am hoping to God you save now not enjoy kids, this skill that of this will be your daughter being punished for punishing already! »

« The system has failed, » wrote Kardashian West additionally on Tuesday. « It’s coronary heart breaking to glimpse a young girl sex trafficked then when she has the braveness to fight assist is jailed for existence! We desire to cease higher & cease what’s lawful. I’ve known as my attorneys the day earlier than recently to glimpse what’s going to be finished to repair this. #FreeCyntoiaBrown« 

« The justice system is so backwards!!! Here’s entirely insane #freecyntoiabrown, » wrote Cara Delevingne on Tuesday.

Brown’s story first captured public attention after the 2011 documentary Me Facing Existence: Cyntoia’s Memoir, which explored her case and the impact of her existence as a teenage sex trafficking sufferer.

Brown, now 29, is spicy her case in the Sixth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, as the Supreme Court docket closing year dominated that sentencing juveniles to existence in detention heart without parole is unconstitutional. Her lawyers additionally plan to file a petition for clemency with Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam sooner than the pause of the year.

Her attorney, Charles Bone, stated he’s now not obvious why the celebrities enjoy noticed Brown’s case now, nonetheless says any make stronger is welcome.

« This wretchedness in customary is devoted of moderately plenty of publicity especially in the custom by which we are residing recently, » Bone informed BuzzFeed News. « And we think the truth that Cyntoia happens to be the little one who’s the topic of all of the publicity in the closing 24 hours is good. Obviously she is now not somewhat one anymore, nonetheless she became once sentenced as somewhat one. »

The man Brown shot, forty three-year-feeble Johnny Mitchell Allen, had picked Brown up on a Nashville roadside and employed her for sex. At the time, she became once staying in a hotel with a person she referred to in court docket recordsdata as « Decrease, » a 24-year-feeble whom she met after working away from her adoptive dad and mom’ home.

On the advice of her lawyers, Brown did not testify at some level of her 2004 trial, nonetheless at some level of an appeals route of in 2014 she stated « Decrease » verbally and physically abused her, forced her to prostitute herself, and once « nearly killed her. »

« In July 2004, she met ‘Decrease Throat,’ who became once 24 years feeble, and started the sigh of cocaine and staying in a hotel with him, » read a court docket file from the allure, which became once finally denied. « In the beginning, ‘Decrease’ became once fine to her. Nonetheless, he started verbally and physically abusing her. He additionally sexually assaulted her and made her prostitute herself. The Petitioner needed to give the money she earned to Decrease. She stated that he became once violent to her, that he nearly killed her one time by choking her, and that she became once skittish of him. »

She stated she shot Allen this skill that of she feared that he became once going to physically hurt her. Prosecutors stated her motive became once to procure the sufferer, nonetheless Brown stated she took weapons and money from his dwelling after the taking pictures this skill that of she feared returning to « Decrease » empty-handed.

Her lawyers, via the appeals route of, additionally showed that Brown has fetal alcohol spectrum dysfunction, that will impair victims’ judgment in stressful instances — a situation that became once now not diagnosed at some level of her initial trial.

Brown has now been in detention heart for 13 years. In that time, she’s earned an partner arts stage and is working on a bachelor’s via Lipscomb College, which offers lessons on the Tennessee Penal complex for Ladies folks, the effect she’s serving out her sentence. Tennessee courts, including the direct Supreme Court docket, enjoy denied moderately plenty of appeals and requests for postconviction assist from Brown.

However the device teenage victims of sex trafficking, and minors sentenced to existence in detention heart, are treated by the rules has modified greatly since Brown became once convicted higher than a decade previously.

The direct of Tennessee has effect in effect of residing moderately plenty of protections for little one sex trafficking victims, including a rules handed in 2011 that offers immunity from prostitution expenses for any person beneath the age of 18, and a 2012 rules that offers victims of human trafficking a protection in prostitution cases.

Though she became once now not convicted for prostitution — her sentence became once handed down for first-stage abolish, first-stage prison abolish, and severely aggravated robbery — advocates say that she became once referred to on the time as a « teenage prostitute » and that she wouldn’t had been handed a existence sentence beneath recently’s authorized pointers.

« She by no device would enjoy gotten existence had she been tried recently, » Derri Smith, CEO of Terminate Slavery Tennessee, a nonprofit that is been working with Brown, informed BuzzFeed News. « It’s a case that completely wants to be reexamined in gentle of what we mark recently about complex trauma and human trafficking. »

« She became once referred to regularly in her customary case as a teen prostitute. There’s no such thing as a teen prostitute. She became once a human trafficking sufferer, » Smith stated.

A US Supreme Court docket resolution closing year compelled states to review their policies on needed existence sentences without the opportunity of parole for folks convicted of crimes when they had been minors. That resolution, which expanded on a outdated SCOTUS resolution from 2012, became once in step with scientific proof that kids’ brains are now not completely developed to kind rational selections on the same level as adults.

But in Tennessee now not one of the most 148 cases of folks sentenced to existence in detention heart as minors had been reviewed, and minors can still be effectively sentenced to existence without parole, due to an contemporary rule that existence sentences can supreme be reviewed every fifty one years.

That device Brown wouldn’t be eligible for review till she’s sixty seven.

« We are on one of these loophole the effect we don’t fall beneath the Supreme Court docket prohibition of needed existence without parole, nonetheless we actually cease enjoy needed existence without parole this skill that of that’s on the total what fifty one years is, » stated Kathy Sinback, an attorney and court docket administrator on the Davidson County Juvenile Court docket.

Sinback became once Brown’s authorized professional in the juvenile court docket system sooner than she became once transferred to be tried as an grownup in 2004, and has been advocating for Brown ever since. She stated Brown is working on a capstone challenge, portion of her bachelor’s stage, about human trafficking and is increasing an outreach program for ladies.

She « doesn’t actually feel like a sufferer of the system » this skill that of it gave her the opportunity to accumulate an training, Sinback stated. « She seems like the system actually worked to avoid losing her existence. Because if she became once still out on the road she seems like she would be uninteresting by now, » she stated.

Sinback stated Brown became once responsive to the celebrities now posting about her case.

« She’s feeling the like and make stronger from these public figures, and it’s giving her higher than something hope and motivation to continue to attain and cease effectively in her existence, » Sinback stated.

Brown’s advocates say they hope the star attention can assist Brown’s case nonetheless additionally draw attention to the premise that kids in detention heart ought to be given the opportunity to be rehabilitated and launched, to boot to raise awareness around sex trafficking.

« She became once sentenced as somewhat one, and the truth that she became once a sex slave and the pimp she became once residing with became once trafficking her is devoted of now not staunch celebrities nonetheless all of us, » stated Bone, Brown’s attorney. « To be responsive to the gravity of what’s going on, now not staunch in Tennessee nonetheless the total world, wants moderately plenty of attention and plenty make stronger. »