New York lawmakers are calling for changes to the state’s sexual assault laws to make it easier to prosecute cases involving intoxicated victims, following renewed attention over an alleged 2024 gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity house.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said this week that his office initially declined to pursue charges against the students accused of raping the woman, partly because of restrictions under current New York law.
The law distinguishes between sexual assault victims who became intoxicated voluntarily, such as by willingly consuming alcohol or drugs, and those who were given intoxicants without their knowledge or consent. Only the latter can be considered “mentally incapacitated” and therefore unable to consent.
Experts and advocates say this can make it more difficult to bring certain rape charges when a victim chose to consume intoxicants, even if their intoxication affected their ability to consent to a sexual act.
“It’s essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card in some situations,” said Stefan Turkheimer, vice president for public policy at the anti-sexual assault nonprofit Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). “It says, if someone is sexually assaulted because they got too high or too drunk, it’s their fault.”
State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who has sponsored legislation for years aimed at closing what he describes as loopholes in the law, is again pushing a bill that would allow rape to be charged if a perpetrator reasonably should have known a victim was unable to consent because of intoxication.
“Rape is the only crime that I’m aware of where, if the victim was drunk, they may not get justice,” he said in an interview. “There shouldn’t be any difference in terms of the survivors of sexual assault between the people who are voluntarily intoxicated and who are involuntarily intoxicated.”