An appeals court in Phoenix, Arizona, vacated activist Monica Jones’ prostitution conviction this morning, citing an unfair trial.
In March 2013, Jones was arrested for prostitution shortly after protesting a controversial “rescue” program known as Project ROSE, which used sweeping police stings to round up suspected sex workers and force them to accept social services and enter a diversion program or face criminal charges. Repeat offenders who did not qualify for the program faced charges and potentially jail time.
“As you may know, I was arrested under an anti-prostitution sting, by the name of Project ROSE,” Jones said in a statement in November, when she learned that Project ROSE was not planning any more stings. “This program used police and prosecutors to round up sex workers, and people profiled as sex workers, forcing them into diversion programs using coercion.”
Jones, who is a black transgender woman and an activist, was charged with violating a vague local statute that considers waving at cars or engaging a passerby in conversation as evidence of “manifesting” an “intent” to sell sexual services. Jones and other activists argue that this “manifesting prostitution” statute allows police to unfairly profile transgender women, poor people and woman of color, and Jones may have been specifically targeted because she is an outspoken activist.
“When an undercover officer saw Monica Jones . . . walking down the street just a few blocks from her house, in an area that the officer described as being ‘known for prostitution,’ that was enough to convince him that she intended to engage in prostitution,” wrote Chase Strangio, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “It was on that basis that he approached and stopped her.”
As Truthout has reported, police in cities across the country routinely profile transgender women and other gender nonconforming people – especially people of color – as sex workers for simply walking down the street, or “walking while woman.”
So, Jones decided to fight her charges in court.
“It’s not just me fighting to prove that I’m innocent; it’s me fighting against this outrageous law,” Jones told Truthout in 2014. “Who has more to lose? The state has more to lose than I do . . . because this case sets a precedent.”
The only witness testimony in the case was from Jones and her arresting officer, who was working undercover when he stopped Jones in his car a few blocks from her house as she was walking to meet some friends at a bar and restaurant.
Both witnesses agreed that Jones accepted a ride from the undercover officer, but they disagreed on who initiated the ride and alleged sexual advances, according to reports.
It was Jones’ word against the cop’s, and the trial court sided with the cop, citing Jones’ credibility as a witness.
Jones had been arrested on prostitution charges a few years earlier and brought to Project ROSE. She called the program “humiliating,” and subsequently joined sex worker and human rights advocates in publicly opposing Project ROSE and other “rescue” programs like it.
Arizona’s harsh prostitution laws require a mandatory 30-day jail sentence for repeat offenders. In the ruling to convict Jones, the trial judge wrote that Jones was not a credible witness because “a motive to avoid a mandatory 30-day sentence would be something that I can’t ignore.”
Here’s an excerpt from the cross-examination of Jones during the original trial:
Q. [by the prosecutor] You’ve not been bashful or shy about your, at least previous sex work experience, correct?
A. I’m not – I’m not ashamed. I’m not shy. I talk about it very openly. And that’s the reason I was out there protesting.
Q. Okay. And so your protest of Project ROSE is related to your work as a sex worker, correct?
A. No. It’s related to my activism for human rights and civil rights. That’s the reason why.
Q. And would you agree with me that you’ve previously been arrested for prostitution activities, correct?
A. Yes. My past is my past.
Q. And would you agree with me that you’ve previously been convicted for prostitution activities, correct?
A. Yes. That’s open records.
Nobody wants to spend 30 days in jail, especially Jones, who, if she had been incarcerated, would have missed her classes at Arizona State University where she studies social work. But just because a witness is facing jail time doesn’t mean they are guilty and prepared to lie about it. This is exactly what the appeals court found in its ruling this morning, which vacated the conviction and declared a mistrial. The appeals court ordered a new trial, but it’s unclear if prosecutors will reopen the case.
“My conviction being vacated is important, but it is a small win in our larger fight for justice,” Jones told reporters this morning. “There are so many trans women and cisgender women who might be charged under this law in Phoenix and similar laws across the country. There is so much more work that needs to be done so that no one will have to face what I have no matter who they are or what past convictions they have.”
The courts did not rule on a constitutional challenge to Phoenix’s “manifesting prostitution” statute filed by the ACLU, but the case – and the activism of Jones and her allies – put Project ROSE and Arizona’s harsh treatment of sex workers under international scrutiny.
In January 2014, sex worker and human rights activists reported the statute and Project ROSE to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In November of that year, Jones announced that she had been informed that Project ROSE would no longer be conducting prostitution sweeps with the police.
The founder of Project ROSE is Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, a social work professor at Arizona State University School of Social Work, where Jones also studies.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy