The Debrief: An Oklahoma court has ruled that oral sex doesn’t count as rape if the victim is unconscious from drinking.
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When the case got to Tulsa Country District Court, however, the judge in charge of the trial dismissed the case outright.
The unanimous ruling – which the court says is based on current state law -stems from a 2014 case where a 17-year-old boy was accused of assaulting a 16-year-old girl. The girl, according to the local newspaper the Oklahoma Watch, had been seen by friends drifting in and out of consciousness in a drunken state before entering the auto. She, however, said she didn’t have any memories of what had happened after leaving the park. The ruling resembles the troubling gap existing between the nation’s patchwork of laws and peoples” concept over “rape’ and “consent’, reports The Guardian”.
Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office appealed that ruling in March – and it was again struck down by an Oklahoma court.
It added: “We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language”.
Fu wasn’t the only one “completely gobsmacked” by the Oklahoma court’s decision which appears to legalize certain forms of sexual assault – as long as the victim is rendered unconscious by alcohol intoxication. A judge initially dismissed the girl’s case.
The boy was charged with forcible oral sodomy, which, unlike rape, does not include anything in the statute about intoxication. The ruling, pronounced unanimously by the state’s criminal appeal court, has sparked outrage among critics. “I don’t believe that anybody, until that day, believed that the state of the law was that this kind of conduct was ambiguous, much less legal”.
The 17-year-old boy’s attorney, however, said she was satisfied with the ruling and with the court’s interpretation of the law.
Oklahoma law defines sodomy as “detestable and abominable crime against nature” and says the crime is forcible when the attacker uses threats or attacks someone who is incapable of consenting because of mental illness.
The girl was allegedly drunk and passed out when the oral assault occured.
Fu said that such legal focus on why the victim was unable to consent puts the victim at fault, when the emphasis should be on the attacker and the crime they have committed. He is planning to ask state legislators to address the decision by changing the oral sodomy law.
The Dean of City University in New York, Michelle Anderson, described the law as “archaic”.
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“It creates a huge loophole for sexual abuse that makes no sense”. The Oklahoma law suffers from a similar lack of understanding about what constitutes rape.
