With regard to "High court: State rape law has gap" (March 25):
The crime that the victim in this case endured was terrible, and it is tragic that she should have to testify again in a new trial. But the implications of the article that what allegedly happened in this case is not already a felony under Minnesota law, and that the state Supreme Court said so, are wrong.
According to the court's recitation of the facts, the victim passed out from intoxication and woke up while being raped. Minnesota's existing law provides that a person is guilty of at least a third-degree sexual assault — the felony of which the defendant in this now-overturned case was convicted — if he sexually assaults a person who is "physically helpless," which is defined as "(a) asleep or not conscious, (b) unable to withhold consent or to withdraw consent because of a physical condition, or (c) unable to communicate nonconsent and the condition is known or reasonably should have been known to the [perpetrator]."
So why was the conviction overturned? Not because the law as written doesn't make the alleged actions a felony, but because the judge at the original trial made a mistake.
The judge instructed members of the jury that the defendant should be found guilty of the charged felony if they determined that the victim was either "physically helpless" or "mentally incapacitated" — but he misstated the statute's definition of that second term.
" 'Mentally incapacitated,' " the statute reads, "means that a person under the influence" of alcohol or drugs "administered to that person without the person's agreement … lacks the judgment to give a reasoned consent to sexual contact or sexual penetration."
The judge's instruction to the jury, however, ignored the words "administered ... without the person's agreement" and stated that a person who became drunk voluntarily would meet the law's definition of being "mentally incapacitated."
But that obviously is not what the statute says, as the Supreme Court unanimously held.