I read this maybe three times over to see whether or not I was missing something. I was STUNNED when I saw this. How does this in anyway makes sense? Forcible penetrative sex is illegal when someone is incapacitated from alcohol, but oral sex isn’t? You can just force yourself into someone’s mouth when they are passed out with no penalty? There are few stories out there that make actually outraged and not just online outrages. This is truly disgraceful. Something needs to be done to change this.
I wonder how universities will use this in the student conduct policies. This ruling just legalized a form of sexual assault.
Technically, if the article is to be believed, they simply followed the law which didn’t explicitly prohibit this.
It’s merely another disturbing example of laws refusing to come into the 21st century.
It really doesn’t surprise me that this comes out of Oklahoma where it was legal to rape your spouse until 1993… and where spousal rape is still legal depending on the circumstances.
Could the court change the law? Courts at the lower levels are to enforce the laws, not make new ones.
What if you were charged with something that wasn’t against the law but the judge thought should be? Would you be okay with the court changing the law?
@twoinanddone For me, this isn’t an indictment against the court that made the decision as much as it is an indictment that the law allows this period. The fact that someone can shove themselves inside of someone’s mouth without any penalty is really mindboggling to me.
Ok, we get the graphics. You said they “legalized sexual assault” and that’s not technically what happened, nor the end of it. There will be interim ways to penalize. Sexual assault is something we’ve been over and over on CC and no one should just make assumptions based on one slice.
Technically, the law does not “allow this.” But it does not currently provide grounds for charging him with “forcible sodomy.” And OK will have to conform to fed laws.
@lookingforward They just let a ton of people know what they can get away with, coming to the decision that there is no penalty for doing that. That’s the equivalent of legalizing it. I’m not sure what assumptions you’re talking about, but I’m interested in the ramifications of this specific decision, not sexual assault in general.
No,they just let a ton of people (including prosecutors) know they cannot be charged specifically with “forcible sodomy” under these circumstances. That does not preclude charging them under another law and seeing it stick.
The issue is another crime may have a lighter penalty. But that’s different than saying it’s now legal.
The DA may also have charged the defendant with the ‘wrong’ crime. The charge may have been rape, and rape may be defined in a very specific way that the facts of this case did not meet. It’s not that this isn’t a crime, it’s that it isn’t rape AS DEFINED in the statute. This might be assault, battery, sexual battery, sexual assault, but not rape as defined.
It happens all the time in criminal cases. Some states allow the DA to charge with the highest level of a crime, and then have ‘lesser includes.’ Some states allow the defendant to exclude the lesser includes. If the defendant is charged with first degree murder but the DA doesn’t prove that the defendant pre-planned the murder, in some states the defendant can be. convicted of second degree murder or even manslaughter, but in other states it is all or nothing, first degree or walk free
I guess the headline of this thread is tantamount to the same thing. Completely distorting the truth to get a point across. Laws have meanings. The court cannot and should not be in the business of legislating. There were other options to charge and they were not taken. The law could be amended to include additional things if that is the will of the people.
BTW, very few children attend colleges. Most are adults.
@katliamom exactly. A friend of mine lives in OK and has been working on several related issues. They get a lot of pushback, but at least they’re getting the word out. How heartbreaking, though, about the story in the OP.