An Oklahoma court has ruled last month that state law doesn't consider oral sex with a completely unconscious victim as a criminal offence and tantamount to rape. The ruling, pronounced unanimously by the state's criminal appeal court, has sparked outrage among critics. They have blamed the judicial system for engaging in victim-blaming while weighing outdated notions about rape.
Legal experts and victims' advocates are observing the ruling as a sign of something larger. The ruling resembles the troubling gap existing between the nation's patchwork of laws and peoples' concept over 'rape' and 'consent', reports The Guardian.
The suit documents suggest that a 17-year-old boy has sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl in her intoxicated state. The unconscious girl has later been taken to the hospital with a blood alcohol level of 0.34. Upon sexual assault examinations, the accused boy's DNA has been found on the back of her leg and around her mouth, according to a report published in Refinery29.
The boy claims to act following her consent while the victim states that she has no memory after leaving Tulsa Park, where they have been drinking. Tulsa county prosecutors have brought charges against the boy for forcible oral sodomy. However, an appeal court has ruled on March 24 that the law is not applicable in this case since the girl victim has been drunk, reports The Huffington Post. Forcible sodomy can't take place where the victim is unconscious due to intoxication at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation, observes the appeal court ruling. The statute lists several circumstances related to force but remains silent on incapacitation in drunken state. The appeal court declines to justify prosecution beyond the fair meaning of the statute language. Benjamin Fu, the Tulsa County district attorney, who has been leading the case has expressed his surprise while reacting towards the ruling. The district attorney continues, saying, the plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy of using force. It also includes taking advantage of a victim who has been intoxicated even to consent. He, however, hasn't considered that the law possesses a loophole until the court has pointed it sharply. Echoing the district attorney, Michelle Anderson, dean of the CUNY School of law has termed the ruling appropriate while referring the law as 'archaic'.
