Current definition was factor in Carroll\u2019s sexual abuse case, which was highlighted by Governor Kathy Hochul at bill ceremony<\/b>
\nNew York will expand its legal definition of rape to include various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact, under a bill signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
The state\u2019s current limited definition was a factor in writer E Jean Carroll\u2019s sexual abuse and defamation case against Donald Trump. The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writer\u2019s claim last May that the former president had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding Trump responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.
The current law defines rape as vaginal penetration by a penis. The new law broadens the definition to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Highlighting Carroll\u2019s case at a bill signing ceremony in Albany, the Democratic governor said the new definition will make it easier for rape victims to bring cases forward to prosecute perpetrators. The law will apply to sexual assaults committed on or after 1 September this year.
\u201cThe problem is, rape is very difficult to prosecute,\u201d Hochul said. \u201cPhysical technicalities confuse jurors and humiliate survivors and create a legal gray area that defendants exploit.\u201d
In Carroll\u2019s case against Trump, which stemmed from an encounter at a Manhattan luxury department store, the judge later said that the jury\u2019s decision was based on \u201cthe narrow, technical meaning\u201d of rape in New York penal law and that, in his analysis, the verdict did not mean that Carroll \u201cfailed to prove that Mr Trump \u2018raped\u2019 her as many people commonly understand the word \u2018rape\u2019\u201d.
While various states define rape in different ways, every state criminalizes oral, anal, and vaginal sexual contact that is nonconsensual, according to Sandi Johnson, a senior legislative policy counsel at Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network. Prior to its new law, New York defined penetration of the vagina or other bodily orifices with anything other than a penis as \u201csexual abuse\u201d rather than \u201crape\u201d.
Many other states continue to place unwanted oral or anal sexual contact in a category other than rape.
Johnson said New York\u2019s new guidelines validate what has happened to survivors. Calling a criminal sexual act anything other than rape \u201ckind of sanitizes it\u201d, she said.
At Tuesday\u2019s bill signing, state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the legislation, said the new changes would also make it easier for members of the LGBTQ+ community to hold perpetrators of sex crimes accountable.
\u201cWe can\u2019t have our laws ignore the reality that so many New Yorkers, particularly LGBTQ New Yorkers, among others, have experienced,\u201d the Democrat said.
\u201cBefore today, many of those assaults wouldn\u2019t be able to be classified as rape in New York state,\u201d he said. \u201cBut now we fixed that language.\u201d<\/p>\n