TULSA, Okla., April 28 (UPI) — An Oklahoma court has shocked local prosecutors by ruling that, according to state law, oral sex with an unconscious victim is not rape.
The state’s criminal appeals court made the unanimous ruling late last month, setting off fierce opinions about how many of the country’s laws have troublingly antiquated ideas about rape.
The ruling stems from a 2014 case of a 17-year-old boy allegedly assaulting a 16-year-old girl after offering to drive the girl — who witnesses said was drunk and unconscious — to her grandmother’s house.
The girl was still unconscious after being dropped off and was taken to a hospital where doctors found the boy’s DNA around the girl’s mouth and on the back of her legs. The girl said she had no memory of leaving the park and Tulsa County prosecutors charged the boy with forcible oral sodomy.
“We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language,” the appeals court wrote in its opinion.
County District Attorney Benjamin Fu called the ruling “insane,” “dangerous” and “offensive,” and argued an intruder entering an unlocked house can be still charged with breaking and entering.
Because the court’s opinion was unpublished, it can’t be used as legal precedent, Fu said, but the ruling might lead to those convicted under similar circumstances to be freed on appeal or make reporting the crime much more difficult for victims.
“All this does is add to the fire,” Fu said. “[Sexual assault victims’] biggest fear is that people they tell the story to won’t understand or will judge them for their behavior. If they had that concern, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed that, 5-0.”
