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.
Source: Oklahoma court: Forced oral sex is not rape – UPI.com
Disgusting, right? We should gather pitchforks and torches, mosey over the OK Supreme Court and make our displeasure known.
Except that the ruling is right and the reason is clearly explained:
Simply stated, as disgusting as the incident was, it is not codified as a crime within the narrow specifications that the Oklahoma Legislature chose to define Forcible Sodomy.
Separation of Powers. A court does not create laws, it rules and decides cases according to the law. The Legislatures makes the laws and the Executive enforces them.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court and Judge Pickerill did what they were supposed to do.
Lawyers feel free to chime in.
Hat tip to Mark L.A. and Ken O.
This was a good move. It forces the legislature to come up with new laws that are more appropriate for the time. Hopefully good citizens will chime in and help the legislature make good law.