Posted on 01/06/2003 6:33:57 PM PST by RCW2001
Monday, January 6, 2003
©2003 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/01/06/national2027EST0776.DTL
(01-06) 17:27 PST SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
The California Supreme Court defined rape Monday as continued sexual intercourse by a man after his female partner demands that it stop.
The 7-0 decision reverses a 1985 ruling by a lower court.
"This opinion is significant. It appears the California Supreme Court has clearly rejected an opportunity to revisit past barriers to rape convictions," said Douglas Beloof, an attorney with the National Crime Victim Law Institute.
The 2000 case involved two 17-year-olds who had sex in a bedroom during a party. The boy testified that the sex was consensual and that he stopped when the girl demanded. She testified the boy kept having sex with her for about a "minute and a half" after she called it off.
The boy was convicted of rape and served about six months in a juvenile facility. The high court affirmed that conviction Monday.
Justice Janice Rogers Brown, while agreeing with the majority on what constitutes rape, dissented on whether the boy was guilty. She wrote that the girl never clearly said stop, instead saying "I should be going now" and "I need to go home."
Brown also wondered how much time a man has to stop once a woman says stop.
"Ten seconds? Thirty?" she wrote.
©2003 Associated Press
I will agree that "no means no" regardless of anything, no arguments or situational ethics.. they don't apply.
But this is splitting hairs.
It's ridiculous.
Sex is a shared consensual, biological, and (hopefully) spiritual experience. This was not rape. This boy was railroaded by grotesquely unjust PC lunatic "activist" judges.
While I would honor such a request, out of respect..
The person who put me in that situation would never darken my door again. That's certain.
I understand your point of view. I think it would be fair to say that both the boy and the girl could have handled the situation a little better.
I see no basis for a federal appeal, so I'm afraid the girl's parents(*) succeed in wrecking this boy's life. Disgusting.
(*) The reasons I see the girl's parents (or someone other than the girl) as the primary instigator here:While I can't necessarily fault parents for being annoyed at boys who sleep with their daughters, going after this way is a terrible abuse of the legal system. Much better would be Exodus 22:16 (which used to be tradition).
- The girl's statements, as alleged, are not the plausible statement of someone who's being raped.
- The girl herself thus knows that she was not strongly opposed to continuing intercourse when it occurred.
- If she was dishonest enough to change her mind about that, she would also be dishonest enough to change other aspects of her story so as to be more compelling.
I really don't know if the "vicious little b*tch" swore out charges against the vicious little b*stard.
I must say I'm unimpressed with either of you people's characterizations of the children here. By my reading, it's pretty clear that somebody--most likely the girl's parents--pressed the case against the young man.
Per Loin: I see no evidence that the girl lied about the overt facts of the case; if she's called to the stand, she's legally required to say what physically happened. Further, I conclude that she was not the instigator of the case based upon the following logic:
From my limitted experience (with my wife), it seems that when a woman is receptive, each 'stroke' will generally make her more so. If she is non-receptive, each 'stroke' will make her less so. If the girl was really not consenting to sex, it should have taken her a lot less than 90 seconds for her to make it pretty darned obvious.
LOL! ! !
Okay, okay, the competition is over. I declare you the winner of the coveted Wussy Award.
I'd have no trouble calling it rape if the male refused to stop after being told persistently to stop for ten seconds. Maybe even five. And if the female were to tell the male to stop perstently for ninety seconds and he refused, I'd not hesitate at all to lock the him up and throw away the key. But that's not what happened.
Instead, the girl spent maybe five seconds out of ninety making statements which might be construed as requests to stop (but could also be construed as requests to "finish quickly") and the other eighty-five seconds making no negative statements whatever.
BTW, while I find BDSM distasteful, I understand that BDSM couples and groups generally don't have this sort of problem: all parties agree beforehand on a word or gesture which means "STOP EVERYTHING NOW". No questions about whether that means "hurry up" or "slow down" or "not so deep" or anything like that. My wife and I didn't need any such thing (what with being married and all) but for unmarried couples where ongoing consent might be an issue, a safeword would seem like a good idea.
I wouldn't go quite that far. Your passenger has the right to leave your car at any time and place on your route as she sees fit, provided only that it is reasonable and safe for you to stop the car there. She does not have the right to damand that you take your car on a substantially new route. If she indicates a desire to go home, and her home is not on your current route, I see no legal reason for you not to continue to your current destination and let her catch a cab (or bus, train, etc.) from there. Courtesy would suggest that if you'll be passing a better transit point than your destination you should offer to drop her there, but if she doesn't request it I see no obligation on your part to do so.
On the other hand, if a woman demands to be let go immediately I see no legal basis for keeping her in your car any longer than traffic and road conditions require.
Her legs.
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