Oklahoma Court Ruling (trigger warning)

[EatsShitAndLeaves]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/27/oral-sex-rape-ruling-tulsa-oklahoma-alcohol-consent?CMP=sharebtnn_fb

Words fail me....AIBU to think the judges were on glue?

Apparently:

“Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the decision read.

Just... what?! Those judges should be stripped of their titles - it genuinely makes me worry about what else they've let slide or what else they get up to if this is indicative of their moral code.

I don't even have words to express how utterly ridiculous this is. My heart goes out to anyone who's going to be affected by this ruling.

Fuck, that's properly sick.

So now, in Oklahoma, you can drug/drink a girl into oblivion, and so long as you do it "the right way" you are free from prosecution??!!

Words fucking fail me.

Remember this:

theweek.com/articles/472972/rape-cant-cause-pregnancy-brief-history-todd-akins-bogus-theory

That is non, sensical

Following that rationale, the argument could be extended to say it's also fine to have sex with children then as they are also similarly unable to consent and unaware of what is happening to them

Jesus Christ wtf is happening?! How could anyone think that's ok?

Holy fucking smokes!
That is beyond a joke

It's unbelievable isn't it

Why do we keep acting surprised that some American states have laws and beliefs from the 17th century?

Newsflash. Some American states have laws and beliefs from the 17th century.

Very scary ones.

Actually, a few of them would probably piss of 17th century people too.

It ain't all fun and Disneyland. There are some massive pockets of, I dunno, darkness? Despair? I can't even think of the word. It's a funny ol' place because it's got the shiny skyscrapers and perfectly ordinary normal people with modern, 2000s-style beliefs standing side by side with those of a religious fervour and deep loathing of women that would make ISIS nervous.

In some ways, looking west is looking back in time

He could have killed her. She was in and out of consciousness FFS.

This is why the devil is in the detail, and poorly written and considered legislation is a BAD THING.

Only vaginal and anal rape while intoxicated is covered by the statute. But this was oral, so it isn't actually illegal.

Part of me wonders whether the statue was written in this way because oral rape just never occurred to the law-makers.

Having read it I think I understand what they were saying:

Under the specific law "force" is clearly defined
She was not forced - according to the law - and therefore he cannot be guilty of a the specific crime he was charged with
The judge could not stretch the definition of the specific crime just because he thought what the boy did was wrong.

The problem here is that the boy should have been charged with a different offence.

This does seem to be down to lawmakers rather than the judges.

Werksallhourz - sort of a cross post there. Exactly - I was referring to the specific crime of oral sodomy by force.

Judgment: www.ocdw.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/State-v.-RZM.pdf
Law: law.justia.com/codes/oklahoma/2014/title-21/section-21-888v2

So the point is that the crime of "forcible sodomy" has quite specific elements and this crime does not fit it. Judges can interpret legislation - but not to the extent of making it mean something it clearly doesn't. It's bizarre that the prosecution weren't given a chance to amend their pleadings so that they could bring their case under a more appropriate section though. Or perhaps there really is a deficiency in Oklahoma sexual offences law and raping/sexually assaulting someone who is unconscious is not criminalised under any section - in which case this is clearly a pretty important ruling (and not one the court should be blamed for - though the Oklahoma equivalent of the law commission is at fault if this hasn't been spotted before).

“The plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy, of using force, includes taking advantage of a victim who was too intoxicated to consent,” Fu said. “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. And I don’t think the law was a loophole until the court decided it was.

I think you could argue the the decision actually set the precedent.

Yes it's interpretation of the law, but it doesn't make it any less shocking.

Ah X post with blue

nobilityobliges - you expressed it better than I did - but yes, that's what I understood.

I don't know US law but I would have thought he could have been charged with some kind of assault.

It's for the State Legislature to put the law right - the court must just take it as it finds it and cannot stretch it to cover what it does not cover. He could probably have been charged with some less serious assault crime but it's too late for that now.

So we can assume that if one of the Judges were to be drunk and a man put his penis in the Judges mouth then its all ok. Or is it only the oral rape of girls and women is ok?

If anyone should be in the shit surely it's the DA who relied on his view of the law which the Court disagreed with. It's not down to the Judges to fix this or to take the blame. That's down ro Oklahoma's legislature. The judges were just following the law the State gave them.

The trouble is that Oklahoma law is very specific about what does or does not constitute the offence here:

1. Sodomy committed by a person over 18 years of age upon a person under 16 years of age; or

1. Sodomy committed upon a person incapable through mental illness or any unsoundness of mind of giving legal consent regardless of the age of the person committing the crime; or

1. Sodomy accomplished with any person by means of force, violence, or threats of force or violence accompanied by apparent power of execution regardless of the age of the victim or the person committing the crime; or

1. Sodomy committed by a state, county, municipal or political subdivision employee or a contractor or an employee of a contractor of the state, a county, a municipality or political subdivision of this state upon a person who is under the legal custody, supervision or authority of a state agency, a county, a municipality or a political subdivision of this state; or

1. Sodomy committed upon a person who is at least 16 years of age but less than 20 years of age and is a student of any public or private secondary school, junior high or high school, or public vocational school, with a person who is 18 years of age or older and is employed by the same school system.

So it does contemplate the possibility of someone being unable to consent due to mental illness or "unsoundness of mind" but not being unable to consent due to intoxication. It seems pretty clear that, because the circumstances of this case didn't fit into those five categories, the judges felt they had no choice. It is extraordinary that the legislature didn't apparently consider intoxication; but maybe, being Oklahoma, it decided that if you get drunk you deserve whatever happens to you.

Fayk, it's pretty clear that they'd have interpreted the law the same way whoever the victim was. They didn't really have a choice.