Oklahoma State Legislators! Please Make These Changes to Your State's Laws

My Facebook and Twitter accounts were abuzz yesterday with reports of this recent opinion by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma in which the Court held that a juvenile defendant was not guilty of forcible sodomy under Oklahoma law because his victim was passed out from intoxication when the defendant forced her to engage in oral sex.  The Court noted that it was bound by the "very specific" requirements for the commission of the crime of forcible sodomy. Those five scenarios in which forcible sodomy occurs are (under 21 Ok. Stat. § 888(B)):

1. Sodomy committed by a person over eighteen (18) years of age upon a person under sixteen (16) years of age; or 

2. Sodomy committed upon a person incapable through mental illness or any unsoundness of mind of giving legal consent regardless of the age of the person committing the crime; or

3. Sodomy accomplished with any person by means of force, violence, or threats of force or violence accompanied by apparent power of execution regardless of the age of the victim or the person committing the crime; or 

4. Sodomy committed by a state, county, municipal or political subdivision employee or a contractor or an employee of a contractor of the state, a county, a municipality or political subdivision of this state upon a person who is under the legal custody, supervision or authority of a state agency, a county, a municipality or a political subdivision of this state; or 

5. Sodomy committed upon a person who is at least sixteen (16) years of age but less than twenty (20) years of age and is a student of any public or private secondary school, junior high or high school, or public vocational school, with a person who is eighteen (18) years of age or older and is employed by the same school system.

Note that "sodomy," remains undefined beyond the description provided in 21 Oklahoma Statutes §886 which eloquently states that sodomy is "the detestable and abominable crime against nature." More on this later.

Following this ruling, outrage ensued, with several outlets (e.g.: here and here) erroneously reporting that Oklahoma law provides that "it isn't rape if the victim is drunk." This is actually untrue, as Oklahoma's law against rape (Ok. Stat. § 1111(A)(4)) specifically provides that the definition of rape includes sex with one who "is intoxicated by a narcotic or anesthetic agent, administered by or with the privity of the accused as a means of forcing the victim to submit."

Oh, hang on, I should clarify that the rape-by-intoxication crime applies only when the victim is not the perpetrator's spouse. More on this later.

Oklahoma legislators announced that they are working to close this loophole in the law against forcible sodomy. If the legislature copies the language above from subsection (A)(4) of Oklahoma's rape statute into the forcible sodomy statute, this should solve the problem. To any Oklahoma state legislators who are reading this post, please do that.

While doing the research to write the post so far, however, I discovered some other areas of Oklahoma criminal law that may be due for some revision. I encourage all of my readers, especially those who are Oklahoma state legislators, to continue reading beyond the break.