There is no way that a person who is described as being “dead” can give consent. As I understand it, the legal argument used was that she hadn’t said “no” so it couldn’t be rape. The implication being that the default setting is “yes” and unless a person physically says “no” they are consenting.
If you use that rationale, then children who are considered impaired by youth (thanks for the clarification, Springfield Reformer), don’t have the ability to say “no” so the default setting would be “yes”.
Do you believe that a person who is physically unable to say “no” is automatically consenting to have every imaginable sex act done to her in public and posted online?
And yet she was *not* "dead."
I think using the drunken hyperbole of teenage boys as "evidence," particularly when, as in this case, the statement is demonstrably wrong, is the tactic of a mob.
Further, my "default" is "innocent until proven guilty" and in no post from anyone in the "lynch'em" crowd have I seen anything but white hot hate for any comment that could be construed as exculpatory.
My position is that all parties were too inebriated to credibly support a rape charge, and I'd rather see ten guilty go free than one innocent convicted.