NEWS
Heed "no" during sex to avoid rape charge, New York Times, 8 January 2003
Court Changes Rule on Rape in California

January 8, 2003 By REUTERS

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 7 - The California Supreme Court has broken ground on what constitutes rape by ruling that a woman can change her mind and say no in the middle of what started out as consensual intercourse.

The 6-to-1 opinion on Monday was hailed by rape support groups but was sharply criticized by Associate Justice Janice Brown, who said her colleagues had failed to protect innocent men.

"The prosecution still has the burden of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim clearly communicated withdrawal of consent and the defendant exercised some degree of force to continue," Justice Brown wrote.

The justices nullified a lower court's 1985 decision that classified such "postpenetration rapes" as assaults rather than rapes.

The majority found the reasoning in that case "archaic and outmoded social convention" and rejected the defense's theory that a man could not be expected to stop having sex immediately when consent was withdrawn.

"It is only natural, fair and just that a male be given a reasonable amount of time in which to quell his primal urge," a defense lawyer, Carol Foster of Sacramento, wrote.

The ruling stemmed from a March 23, 2000, encounter between two 17-year-olds at a party in Northern California.

The victim, identified as Laura T. in court records, testified that she did not "officially" tell the boy, identified as John T., that she did not want sex but said she kept trying to pull away, saying, "He should wait and respect that I don't want to do this."

The boy said he stopped having sex with Laura as soon as she told him she had to go home.

The justices acknowledged that problems could arise from "the possibly equivocal nature" of withdrawing consent in the midst of sex, but they did not say how clearly the withdrawal had to be communicated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/08/national/08RAPE.html?ex=1043033426&ei=1&en =2dbdf2f0e39cc695

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