ALBANY, N.Y. ā New York will expand its legal definition of rape to include various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
The stateās current limited definition was a factor in writer E. Jean Carrollās sexual abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump. The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writerās claim last May that Trump had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding the former president responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.
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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's 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 Sept. 1.
āThe problem is, rape is very difficult to prosecute," Hochul said. āPhysical technicalities confuse jurors and humiliate survivors and create a legal gray area that defendants exploit.ā
In Carroll's case against Trump, which stemmed from an encounter at a Manhattan luxury department store, the judge later said that the juryās decision was based on āthe narrow, technical meaningā of rape in New York penal law and that, in his analysis, the verdict did not mean that Carroll āfailed to prove that Mr. Trump ārapedā her as many people commonly understand the word ārape.āā
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 āsexual abuseā rather than ārape.ā
Many other states continue to place unwanted oral or anal sexual contact in a category other than rape.
Johnson said New York's new guidelines validate what has happened to survivors. Calling a criminal sexual act anything other than rape ākind of sanitizes it,ā she said.
At Tuesday's bill signing, state Sen. 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.
āWe canāt have our laws ignore the reality that so many New Yorkers, particularly LGBTQ New Yorkers, among others, have experienced,ā the Democrat said.
āBefore today, many of those assaults wouldnāt be able to be classified as rape in New York state," he said. āBut now we fixed that language."
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Associated Press writer Mike Sisak contributed to this report.
Maysoon Khan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.