Oklahoma: Where raping an unconscious person's throat is legal if they were drinking. [View all]

[moriah]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/oklahoma-court-rules-that-forced-oral-sex-is-not-rape-if-victim-is-unconscious-from-drinking/

An Oklahoma court has stunned local prosecutors with a declaration that state law doesn’t criminalize oral sex with a victim who is completely unconscious.

The ruling, a unanimous decision by the state’s criminal appeals court, is sparking outrage among critics who say the judicial system was engaged in victim-blaming and buying outdated notions about rape.

But legal experts and victims’ advocates said they viewed the ruling as a sign of something larger: the troubling gaps that still exist between the nation’s patchwork of laws and evolving ideas about rape and consent.

The case involved allegations that a 17-year-old boy assaulted a girl, 16, after volunteering to give her a ride home. The two had been drinking in a Tulsa park with a group of friends when it became clear that the girl was badly intoxicated. Witnesses recalled that she had to be carried into the defendant’s car. Another boy, who briefly rode in the car, recalled her coming in and out of consciousness.

Sorry if dupe, but it just hit my FB feed and I'm outaged.

I never actually thought my state, Arkansas, would have better laws regarding sexual assault than others, even Oklahoma. But despite the antiquated term "deviate sexual activity" to refer to oral, anal, or penetration with an object, it's all class Y Rape if the victim was unconscious -- even if the unconscious person consumed the alcohol or drugs willingly.

For our definitions:

(5) "Mentally incapacitated" means that a person is temporarily incapable of appreciating or controlling the person's conduct as a result of the influence of a controlled or intoxicating substance:

(A) Administered to the person without the person's consent; or

(B) That renders the person unaware a sexual act is occurring;

(7) "Physically helpless" means that a person is:

(A) Unconscious;

(B) Physically unable to communicate a lack of consent; or

(C) Rendered unaware a sexual act is occurring

Any of the above would have covered what happened in that case.

Oklahoma legislators have some work to do.