Let’s get down to it, folks. We’ve heard a lot of different thoughts and perspectives on this case. And we’ve listened. Because you learn more from listening than from just believing what you want to believe. If we’d learned anything about this case that made it apparent to us the side we’re fighting for wasn’t in the right - we’d tell you. This isn’t some charade we’re trying to keep up. This isn’t a scam. It isn’t a game. It isn’t fun. This shouldn’t be happening.

But it is. So it’s time to break this down and lay out some hard facts about this case. Drew Clinton testified that he’d found Cammy sexually attractive earlier in the evening. He testified he knew she was “wrecked” at the party. He saw her gagging herself in the street in an attempt to vomit more because she was feeling so sick. He saw her being carried around because she was unable to walk into the house of her own volition. He received instructions from a medical worker who lived at the house on how to take care of a person thought to be suffering from alcohol poisoning, and he was left with Cammy that evening in the position of her caretaker. It was not an accident that Drew ended the night in the same room as Cammy; there was plenty of space available to sleep elsewhere but he was with her of his own volition. And he took that opportunity to sexually assault her.

And his lawyer said (ad lib), “Well, it wasn’t about whether he did it or not, because he said he did it; it was just a matter of if she consented or not.” Let’s talk about that. Because from what we’ve learned about consent laws in the State of Illinois, a 16 year old is never, under any circumstance, able to provide consent. A sick / intoxicated / otherwise incapacitated person is not able to give knowing consent. Drew definitely knew that Cammy was in no coherent state of mind. It doesn’t matter if he knew her age; her being under the "age of consent" is just a fact. (So how is it ethical for his lawyer to propose it ever could have been consensual? Does his lawyer not know Illinois Law, or has he knowingly used an unethical defense in the course of representing his client?)

Additionally, and please tune in for this message: Drew Clinton is not in charge of Cameron Vaughan’s consent. This whole “it was consensual” defense is riding solely on this 18 year old man's word that “she was enjoying it.” That’s what he said in testimony. And that’s disgusting. As if he has any authority to dictate how a separate human thinks and feels. And as if his lawyer, or Judge Adrian, or anybody else in the world besides Cammy has a right to decide how Cammy felt about the assault. The only person who has the authority to say if what happened was consensual or not is Cammy, and she said it wasn’t. This is such insidious territory, because it is common for assault and abuse victims to carry the weight of how their body responded to the assault and/or abuse. The body’s physical response to stimulation of sexual organs is not fully voluntary. The body of a person in a coma, or asleep, or intoxicated, can be stimulated, and it will respond, and that is exactly why part of the law about what constitutes consent blatantly spells out that if a person is in no condition to provide knowing consent, then consent can not be provided. 

Cammy was not in any condition to provide consent, and she was under the age of consent. Drew testified that he was aware she was “wrecked,” and it doesn’t matter if he knew her age or not. He testified to having a premeditated sexual motive for finding himself alone with Cammy, he voluntarily found himself in that position, and he used the opportunity to assault her. 

She told her friends immediately that it wasn’t consensual. She told her dad. She told the police. She told the hospital staff. She told the State’s Attorney, and Judge Adrian, and now she’s told the entire world that what happened to her was not consensual. Because it wasn’t.

It should not be this difficult. But here we are.

And we’re not going anywhere. We’re not a community that’s comfortable with just letting this obvious injustice slide. We’re plying every avenue we can think up to try to open the hearts of people who hold authority, that they might consider us worth their time, “a big enough deal,” important enough to slow down and assess. We’ve written hundreds of letters to the Supreme Court - we’ve heard two people have gotten the same form response. It was signed in the name of Cynthia Grant, informing recipients that we should all have written to the Judicial Inquiry Board instead. (Coincidentally, both persons who have noted receiving response letters live outside of the State of Illinois.) We’ve contacted every City of Quincy Ald, Mayor Troup, most of Illinois’ Senate and Congress leaders, the Supreme Court Clerk, the 4th District Appellate Court Clerk, the Attorney General’s Office Clerk, the Illinois Courts Help Hotline, the Vaughan family has been seeking information from the District Attorney’s Office Clerk - we’d really appreciate any amount of positive support anyone could assist us with in directly contacting the correct person or persons who are able to correct the injustice that has occurred here.

We are going to keep fighting. What we are fighting for is for the laws that already currently exist to be upheld. What the opposition is fighting for is to continue to not be held accountable for their illegal, unethical behavior - and it completely destroys our faith in the judiciary that a good number of those persons are people we are supposed to trust will uphold and preserve ethics and the law. 

As always - your support is everything.
It always has been.

Thank you.

We’ll let you know about April 7th in a minute.

#StandWithCammy
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E-mail: standwithcammy@gmail.com