NYS expands legal definition of rape to cover all forms of nonconsensual sexual contact
ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law Tuesday that broadens the state’s rape laws to ensure that additional forms of nonconsensual, forced sexual conduct can be prosecuted as rape.
The chief change in the law means oral and anal sexual assaults can be prosecuted as rape instead of sexual assault. A more narrow definition, centered on vaginal intercourse, was a factor in E. Jean Carroll’s recent sexual abuse and defamation case against Donald Trump.
The governor said the new law will “put to rest a decadelong debate to determine what legally constitutes rape in the State of New York.”
“The problem is, rape is very difficult to prosecute,” Hochul said at a bill-signing ceremony at the State Capitol. “Physical technicalities confuse jurors and humiliate survivors and create a legal gray area that defendants exploit.”
WHAT TO KNOW
- Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law Tuesday that broadens the state’s rape laws to ensure that additional forms of nonconsensual, forced sexual conduct can be prosecuted as rape.
- The governor said the new law will “put to rest a decadelong debate to determine what legally constitutes rape in the State of New York.”
- The law becomes effective Sept. 1 and will not impact any cases opened previously, officials said.
The governor said the law was about survivors and “backing them with the full force of our justice system so those who commit rape are charged accordingly.”
The law becomes effective Sept. 1 and will not impact any cases opened previously, officials said.
The push for updating the legal definition of rape was sparked by numerous cases, but perhaps most notably by the case of Michael Pena, a former New York police officer who admitted grabbing a schoolteacher off the street in 2011, threatening her with a gun and attacking her.
Eventually, Pena was convicted on three counts of predatory sex assault with a weapon and three counts of criminal sex acts involving touching. But the jury deadlocked on rape — Pena had admitted attacking the woman but denied having intercourse with her.
A judge sentenced Pena to 75 years in prison on the convictions. His lawyers appealed the sentence, contending it was excessive. But while the appeal continues, Pena eventually reached a plea deal with prosecutors on the rape charge, accepting a 10-years-to-life sentence.
Lydia Cuomo, the woman Pena assaulted, issued a statement through the state Assembly, saying she had lost hope for a while that the law would ever change.
“It has been 15 years from the moment I was brutally raped and the law failed me,” said Cuomo, who since moved away from New York. “The definition of rape refused to recognize what happened to me as such and allowed my assailant to walk away with merely a sexual- assault conviction during the trial. … This legislation is a sign that the voices of survivors matter here in New York.”
The law also played a role in Carroll's case against Trump.
The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writer’s claim that Trump had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding the former president responsible for sexual abuse. The judge later said the jury’s decision was based on “the narrow, technical meaning” of rape in New York penal law and that, in his analysis, the verdict did not mean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Advocates call the new law the “Rape is Rape Act.”
Assemb. Catalina Cruz (D-Jackson Heights), the Assembly bill sponsor, said the new law is about “sending a message to survivors that what they endured was rape, and it deserves to be acknowledged as such.”
“This is more than a change in terminology. It’s a profound shift to recognize the full spectrum of pain, affirming the dignity of every survivor and fostering a just legal and societal reconciliation,” Cruz said in a statement. She later added the state’s previous statute was “based on an outdated, gender-based definition of rape.”
The law was subject to some 11th-hour editing, with Hochul requesting what's called “chapter amendments,” which she said centered primarily on making sure it cannot apply retroactively to harm ongoing cases.
With wire reports
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