[acb-hsp] Bite, Kick, or Scratch

[Mary Ann Robinson]

What a deplorable, ridiculous, senseless discouraging ruling

Mary Ann.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "peter altschul" <paltschul at centurytel.net>
To: "Acbhsp" <acb-hsp at acb.org>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 11:11 PM
Subject: [acb-hsp] Bite, Kick, or Scratch


> Court Rules Severely Disabled Woman Wasn't Raped Because She 
> Didn't 'Bite, Kick or Scratch' Her Assailant
>  Zack Beauchamp October 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 bunconscious or for any other reason. . .  physically 
> unable to communicate unwillingness to an acteab 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, bare 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 defectb as the 
> victim did in this case."
>  Anna Doroghazi, director of public policy and communication at 
> Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, worried that the 
> Court's interpretation of the law ignored these concerns: "By 
> implying that the victim in this case should have bitten or 
> kicked her assailant, this ruling effectively holds people with 
> disabilities to a higher standard than the rest of the population 
> when it comes to proving lack of consent in sexual assault cases.  
> Failing to bite an assailant is not the same thing as consenting 
> to sexual activity." An amicus brief filed by the Connecticut 
> advocates for disabled persons argued that this higher standard 
> "discourag[ed] the prosecution of crimes against persons with 
> disabilities" even though bpersons with a disability had an 
> age-adjusted rate of rape or sexual assault that was more than 
> twice the rate for persons without a disability."
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