In 35 states, it's not illegal for cops to have sex with/assault someone in custody.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

While most states have laws prohibiting sexual contact between prison workers and people who are incarcerated, way fewer have laws that prohibit the same for cops. This story brought the issue to the forefront again, but not much has changed:

https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/nypd-cops-get-probation-for-having-sex-with-teen-in-custody.html

No Prison Time for Ex-Cops Accused of Raping a Teen in Custody

A pair of ex-NYPD detectives who admitted to having sex with a teenager in their custody are walking away from the case with five years’ probation, rather than prison sentences.

On Thursday, Eddie Martins and Richard Hall pleaded guilty to 11 charges — including bribery and official misconduct, but not rape or sexual assault — in a quiet deal that the New York Post reports appears to have been kept under wraps deliberately. Initially, the former cops faced over 40 charges stemming from a 2017 incident in which they allegedly abused an 18-year-old who goes by the social media pseudonym Anna Chambers. Martins and Hall reportedly stopped Chambers in Brooklyn’s Calvert Vaux Park, where she was sitting in a car with two friends. After they found Klonopin and marijuana in the vehicle, Chambers said, the detectives handcuffed her, put her in a van, and took turns raping her while they drove around.

A subsequent rape kit recovered DNA from both Martins and Hall, who admitted to having sex with Chambers, but maintained it was consensual. They resigned when they were indicted, but at the time, it was still technically legal for New York police officers to have sex with people in their custody. While Chambers’s case did catalyze a policy change, it came too late. Defense attorneys hammered on apparent inconsistencies in her story: She repeatedly told investigators that she had been wearing a skirt on the night of the attack, when in fact she was wearing track pants; she recalled a very specific driving route and named distinct landmarks, but the cell-tower data didn’t fit. And then, it emerged that an assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn DA’s office had been having an affair with Hall.

Faced with an increasingly complex case, the DA subsequently downgraded the charges in March, citing “unforeseen and serious credibility issues” while still asking that Martins and Hall do prison time. Instead, they received probation.

This map is from 2018, so things may have changed in your state:

[bobbieinok]

1. 1st heard in 61 this happened. Arrested, in jail for sit-in. Woman there told us ro be careful

Was pretty naive, never even imagined something like that could happen

Also before the sit-in had never imagined being in jail

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Misleading. Snopes says...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-police-legally-rape-people-35-states/



Mixture
This rating indicates that a claim has significant elements of both truth and falsity to it such that it could not fairly be described by any other rating.

What's True
In 35 states, no laws expressly define all sex between police officers and detainees as non-consensual.

What's False
However, rape by police officers is illegal in all 50 states.

[obamanut2012]

3. "Sex" with anyone in your custody is rape, period

It literally can never be consensual, ever.

So, you and Snopes are both mistaken.

[littlemissmartypants]

4. Did you read the article and Snopes?

I think not. Your opinion is supported by both. Lighten up, Francis.

[uponit7771]

7. Yes, sex in custody is rape the snopes article does ... NOT...declare that and they need to in this

...case

[uponit7771]

6. Sigh, snopes gets on my damn nerves. They'd think masters having sex with slaves is OK

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. I used the words in my OP heading deliberately.

When I said

In 35 states, it's not illegal for cops to have sex with/assault someone in custody

I was acknowledging that even ostensibly consensual sex -- covered by "have sex with" in the header -- cannot be considered consensual because of the power differentials and similarities to the example of prison workers, which I then acknowledged with the word "assault" in the header. That's the whole fucking point -- it's not considered assault if there's an understanding of consent. It's a huge loophole that must be closed.

[littlemissmartypants]

9. ...

[ARPad95]

5. The same with the military to their own recruits! Oh, and murder them, too, without consequences.

[demmiblue]

10. An 18-Year-Old Said She Was Raped While In Police Custody. The Officers Say She Consented.

When Anna said she was raped by two on-duty cops, she thought it would be a simple case. She had no idea she lived in one of 35 states where officers can claim a detainee consented.

Anna was sitting in the parked car with two friends when a charcoal gray van pulled up and flashlight beams momentarily blinded her. The 18-year-old had grown up in south Brooklyn and spent many Friday nights like this driving around the city with friends, looking for places to hang out away from home. On this night, though, September 15, 2017, sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., she crossed paths with the cops.

There were two of them, both plainclothes detectives over 6 feet tall and powerfully built, flashing their badges and asking questions. There was weed in the front cupholder, and soon the detectives ordered the three occupants out of the car. As Anna later recalled, the detectives handcuffed her and told her friends, both young men, they were free to go. Then, she said they led her — a slender woman just over 5 feet tall — into the back of the unmarked police van with tinted windows.

...

The cops made no arrest, issued no citation, filed no paperwork about the stop. Hours later, Anna and her mother went to a hospital, where Anna told nurses two detectives had sexually assaulted her, according to hospital records. Semen collected in Anna’s rape kit matched the DNA of detectives Eddie Martins, 37, and Richard Hall, 33, of the Brooklyn South narcotics unit. Both have since resigned from the force and been charged with rape.

Anna assumed it was a simple case: Two cops had sex with a woman in their custody in the middle of their shift.

When a Facebook friend questioned whether there was enough evidence to dispute the officers’ claim that the sex was consensual, Anna wrote back, “Listen man it doesn't fucking matter they’re on duty police officers its a fucking violation these are the people we call for help not to get fucked.”

But Anna didn’t know that in New York, there is no law specifically stating that it is illegal for police officers or sheriff’s deputies in the field to have sex with someone in their custody. It is one of 35 states where armed law enforcement officers can evade sexual assault charges by claiming that such an encounter — from groping to intercourse — was consensual, according to a BuzzFeed News review of every state legal code.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertsamaha/this-teenager-accused-two-on-duty-cops-of-rape-she-had-no