The initial charge was first degree murder, but it was subsequently reduced to involuntary manslaughter, for which Pieper Lewis was sentenced to five years of closely supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to the family of the deceased. So what’s the issue? The man Lewis stabbed to death when she was 15 had been raping her with regularity.
Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.
Lewis said one of those men was Brooks and that he had raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. She recounted being forced at knifepoint by the 28-year-old man to go with Brooks to his apartment for sex. She told officials that after Brooks had raped her yet again, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed Brooks in a fit of rage.
There was no challenge to the allegation that Brooks raped Lewis multiple times. Lewis was a runaway, and taken in by a pimp to be trafficked to others, one of whom was Brooks. Whether Brooks was abusive in addition to raping a 15-year-old is unknown, but there is certainly nothing in the facts to evoke any sympathy for Brooks. He may not be as culpable as her pimp, but still.
So why would a 15-year-old sex-trafficked girl be charged with murder for killing the man raping her?
Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked. But prosecutors have argued that Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and not an immediate danger to Lewis.
Had Lewis stabbed Brooks while he was engaged in raping her, that would be one thing. But while Brooks was asleep is an entirely different legal matter. At the moment when deadly force was used, Lewis was not being harmed. Yes, she was before. Yes, she likely would be after. But not at the time when she killed Brooks. That’s where the law draws a line.
The point is that the law doesn’t encourage people to take the law into their own hands. Defending oneself is one thing, but that occurs in the moment of extremis, when force is being used. One can’t preemptively act or retaliate later. If there is harm being perpetrated against someone, the law says go to the police and they will address the crime. The law does not permit someone, once victimized, to subsequently decide that now would be a good time to kill someone who did you wrong.
Iowa is not among the dozens of states that have a so-called safe harbor law that gives trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity.
Safe harbor laws protect juvenile victims of sex trafficking from prosecution for good faith actions. Usually, this would give them a pass on prostitution charges, but it could also apply to acts to free themselves from traffickers and rapists. But if Brooks was asleep, Lewis could just as well have run to the police rather than grab a knife and stab him 30 times to death.
“My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames,” she read from a statement she had prepared. “Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow.”
“I am a survivor,” she added.
The judge was less prosaic at sentence.
The judge peppered Lewis with repeated requests to explain what poor choices she made that led up to Brooks’ stabbing and expressed concern that she sometimes did not want to follow rules set for her in juvenile lockup.
“The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I’m sure of it,” Porter said. He later added, “This is the second chance that you’ve asked for. You don’t get a third.”
What happened to Lewis was horrific and inexcusable. There is no question about this. But the question is whether Lewis’ decision to kill Brooks was the way to address her nightmare. It’s becoming increasingly acceptable, or at least understandable, but should punishment for horrific crime be imposed by the state or by Lewis while Brooks slept?
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