Oral Sex is not Rape if the victim was unconscious due to intoxication, says Oklahoma Court [Read Judgment]

Lawyers and Layman alike, would hardly doubt that forced sex, of whatsoever nature, without consent with a person who was unconscious at the time of the sexual act, would be a rape within the meaning of penal laws. But a Court in Oklahoma in United States of America has delivered a strange order, which many legal experts describe as “absurd” and “offending”, wherein it has upheld a Trial Court order dismissing the complaint, on a finding that ‘forced’oral sex with a person who is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation, would not constitute ‘Sodomy’.

The justification which the Court has given to support its decision, which has reportedly triggered outrage, is this "Legislature's inclusion of an intoxication circumstance for the crime of rape, is not found in the five very specific requirements for commission of the crime of forcible sodomy. We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language”

The Court has apparently sought to distinguish between what statutes of the Oklahoma State says about requirements of Rape and Sodomy. According the penal statutes of the state specifically says that if the victim is at the time unconscious of the nature of the act and this fact is known to the accused, then that would constitute a rape. But such a circumstances is not mentioned in the provisions dealing with offence of Sodomy. So the Court, restricting itself to rule of strict interpretation of penal statutes, has refused to construe the definition of sodomy with reference to that of rape.

Read the Judgment here.