Ct. Requires Disabled Rape Victim To Prove She Resisted... (‘Biting, Kicking, Scratching’)
Court Requires Disabled Rape Victim To Prove She Resisted, Calls For Evidence Of ‘Biting, Kicking, Scratching’
By Zack Beauchamp on Oct 3, 2012
In a 4-3 ruling Tuesday afternoon, the Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned the sexual assault conviction of a man who had sex with a woman who “has severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old and cannot verbally communicate.” The Court held that, because Connecticut statutes define physical incapacity for the purpose of sexual assault as “unconscious or for any other reason. . . physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act,” the defendant could not be convicted if there was any chance that the victim could have communicated her lack of consent. Since the victim in this case was capable of “biting, kicking, scratching, screeching, groaning or gesturing,” the Court ruled that that victim could have communicated lack of consent despite her serious mental deficiencies:
When we consider this evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, and in a manner that is consistent with the state’s theory of guilt at trial, we, like the Appellate Court, ‘are not persuaded that the state produced any credible evidence that the [victim] was either unconscious or so uncommunicative that she was physically incapable of manifesting to the defendant her lack of consent to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged sexual assault.’
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), lack of physical resistance is not evidence of consent, as “many victims make the good judgment that physical resistance would cause the attacker to become more violent.” RAINN also notes that lack of consent is implicit “if you were under the statutory age of consent, or if you had a mental defect” as the victim did in this case.
That's the 3-paragraph limit. I'm disenheartened that a court would do this. If anyone knows or has family members in this condition, resistance is not what is going to happen. It makes me too sick to say anymore, but you guys judge. More at link:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/03/947981/court-requires-disabled-rape-victim-to-prove-she-fought-back-calls-for-evidence-of-biting-kicking-scratching/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I find it hard to even wrap my mind around. Very disappointed in CT.
their SC are a bunch of sick assholes.
"According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), lack of physical resistance is not evidence of consent, as “many victims make the good judgment that physical resistance would cause the attacker to become more violent.” RAINN also notes that lack of consent is implicit “if you were under the statutory age of consent, or if you had a mental defect” as the victim did in this case".
Exactly...Many victims do not even need to come to their own "good judgment" as the perpetrator will INFORM you of the damage he will inflict upon you should you resist. This is what happened to me decades ago...I was barely out of my teens, 3,000 miles from home in a strange house in a strange city. I DID resist the mofo by kicking him in the balls, whereupon he proceeded to threaten me with severe bodily harm if "you do that again". Being of sound, if distraught mind, I decided to continue to LIVE, but one couldn't exactly call that "consent" could one?
