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Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation—US court
A court in the US state of Oklahoma has stunned legal experts across the world with a bizarre declaration: forced oral sex with an unconscious victim cannot be considered rape, reports said.
The interpretation came while the court was hearing a sexual assault case against a teenager accused of engaging in oral sex with an intoxicated girl.
Reports said the two had been drinking in a park with a group of friends and when the girl was badly intoxicated, he offered to drop her home. Witnesses reportedly said she had to be carried into the defendant’s car and that she was drifting in and out of consciousness.
According to local newspaper the Oklahoma Watch, the boy later brought the girl to her grandmother’s house. Still unconscious, she was taken to a hospital, where a test showed her blood alcohol content above normal.
Reports said the girl woke up to hospital staff conducting a sexual assault examination, which found DNA of the boy on her legs and mouth.
The boy reportedly told investigators that the girl had consented to performing oral sex and that it was her idea. However, she said she didn’t have any memories after leaving the park, according to a report. So the boy was charged with forcible sodomy and was brought to the Tulsa County District Court.
But the trial judge dismissed the charges against the boy first of rape and later of forcible oral sex, after establishing that unconsciousness and intoxication are not part of the definition of the latter crime.
“Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the court decision read.
“We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language.”
