From a San Jose Mercury News article dated 1/6/2003
State court defines rape
RULING: WOMAN MAY WITHDRAW CONSENT AT ANY POINT
By Michelle Guido
Mercury News
The
California Supreme Court on Monday created one of the country's toughest standards on what constitutes rape, ruling that if a woman withdraws consent at any point during sex but her partner refuses to stop, it becomes rape.
The decision removes one of the last gray areas on a woman's right to say no. Rape crisis counselors hailed the ruling, saying it sends a bold message -- especially to young women who are sometimes confused about whether they can change their minds once a sex act is under way.
The 6-1 decision clears up conflicting definitions that California courts have grappled with in recent years. In 1985, an appellate court ruled that continuing after consent has been withdrawn during intercourse doesn't constitute rape, but in 2000, another California appellate court ruled that it did.
"Forcible rape occurs when, during apparently consensual intercourse, the victim expresses an objection and attempts to stop the act and the defendant forcibly continues despite the objection," Justice Ming W. Chin wrote in Monday's ruling.
Supreme courts in at least five other states have ruled it is rape if a woman withdraws consent at any time and her partner doesn't stop. But women's advocates caution that, particularly in rape cases in which the victim knows her offender, juries still will be faced with the difficult task of deciding whom to believe when it comes to consent.
<snip>
The justices upheld that decision, finding the girl "withdrew her consent and, through her actions and words, communicated that fact."
But the ruling still failed to define when the boy should have stopped, wrote
Justice Janice Rogers Brown in a dissenting opinion.
"Ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Is persistence the same thing as force?" she wrote. "And even if we conclude persistence should be criminalized in this situation, should the penalty be the same as for forcible rape?"*link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/4889062.htmYep, they want your up-or-down vote on the only member of the California Supreme Court who voted to overturn the rape conviction of a 17-year-old girl because she believed that the victim gave mixed messages to the rapist. That's moral values for you.
BTW, 6 of the 7 justices were appointed by a Republican governor. So any attempts to paint this court as a bunch of "looney lefties" is dead wrong.
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