Not defending either crime but I’m just curious as to how the court process works. How do they determine how alert the person is?
Not defending either crime but I’m just curious as to how the court process works. How do they determine how alert the person is?
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They have to be really drunk for that.
Also, you don’t generally make a plan that involves having sex after you get drunk.
If you drive to a bar or a party….
Having sex with a drunk person is usually not a crime, people complain about that as an ethical problem not a legal one. It differs a bit by jurisdiction but generally the other person has to be unconscious or incapacitated for it to be illegal.
If you’re sober and pushing to have sex with someone completely blind drunk, you’re taking advantage of their impaired decision making and cognitively reduced state. If you get drunk and drive, you’re the only one responsible for that decision. If we were talking about someone sober pushing someone to drive that was blind drunk, I’d argue it’s a similar culpability morally. Legally, it’s very blurred
If I’m honest though this is actually a good question I’ve wondered about before. It sounds like a stupid one, but I don’t necessarily even think there’s a massively clear answer than it feels right or wrong lol
Because it’s your job not to get drunk enough that you do crimes, and it’s not your job to make sure no one else does crimes at you. If you’re drunk and sexually assault someone you’re still in trouble
It’s only SA if the other person is blackout drunk and is too far gone to consent. If you’re standard-issue drunk it’s consensual.
Usually having sex with a person who has been drinking is not a crime in itself in most jurisdictions, where it becomes a crime is when the person is incapacitated/ unable to consent. This can in some instances end up being tricky to prove in Court becaus not everyone responds to alcohol the same way, and thus some cases don’t get prosecuted. The crime is a sober person having sex with someone that cannot consent.
Driving while under the influence is a crime, you don’t even really have to be ‘drunk’ you could have a low BAC and still get charged. While if you are black out drunk, sure you might not have full control over your faculties but the fact is that getting behind the wheel drunk puts lives at risk, yours or an unsuspecting person driving on that road. If you know you don’t have another way home besides driving, then don’t drink to excess.
>How do they determine how alert the person is?
The trial is where both sides get to present evidence, witnesses, and so on to prove their case. They “try” the case and a “trier of fact” such as a judge or jury determines who wins.
The judge’s job is to determine things, and the jury is a group of ordinary people, but they get chosen with help from both sides and the judge so as to be fair. Either way it’s a large group of people who should have centuries of life experience between them to figure out what makes sense and what doesn’t. Imagine a dozen people’s lifetimes worth of knowing how alcohol affects the body, their interactions (sexual or not) with drunk people, and so on.
Both sides can also bring in expert witnesses on things like biology or psychology to analyze the other testimony and evidence.
It’s only SA if it’s a female it seems. I’m tired of hearing “men can’t be victims, cause if they get hard, it means they want it”, which is complete bullshit.
I am not a lawyer obviously so not legal advice, but strictly legally speaking the reason why this is true is because the legislatures have decided that drunk driving isn’t a conscious crime, but you’re going to be punished anyway.
In a sexual assault you typically have to prove mens rea (a criminal mind) and an actus reus (a criminal act). Fairly straight forward. You knew you were about to have sex with someone, and you accomplished it by force (actus reus). A brief caveat: “force” doesn’t mean violence in most jurisdictions, and to have sex without consent in and of itself is considered rape in most states now. So the drunkenness portion of it triggers when the person is not drunk enough to give affirmative consent, which triggers “force.” This is all a big over simplification, obviously. But, all in all, doesn’t matter what the other person perceived, what matters is you had sex with them forcibly.
For drunk driving, it’s strict liability. The mens rea part drops out entirely. Usually this sort of thing is permissible when the legislature has some compelling reason to do this (which they will articulate), at which point a court recognizes society’s interests prevail and they won’t call it a due process violation. Other times they’ve struck things down as due process violations where it’s blatantly unfair to defendants.
So, it’s not that drunk driving is a conscious crime and SA with a drunk person isn’t. It’s more that the idea of “consciousness” is factored very differently into these situations.
sleeping with a drunk person isn’t SA
Both lead to lawyers, cops, and judges getting paid.
It’s America, outlawing hooking up after a night at the bar is outlandish.
That being said, intentionally taking advantage of someone with a low tolerance, predating them throughout the night, targeting low bodyweight men or women, and over serving them extra ‘shots’ (asked for a double and got a quadruple) or powerful drinks (Rumplemintz instead of McGillycuddy) that weren’t requested with intent to take advantage of their lowered inhibition, is predatory.
At the end of the night, she drank those drinks of her own accord and made those decisions herself. (Refer back to the above description to see where you fit on the bar crawl spectrum and plan accordingly.)
Don’t drive drunk, and drunk sex isn’t that great.
In case of drunk sex, most often both parties are close in level of inebriation. At least in my experience. Drunk people are disgusting to deal with when you sober.
When you drink and drive, you know for certain that you can kill someone. You just decide that it will be okay. That’s why it’s conscious
You’re right, drunk driving SHOULD be sexual assault!
/s
hello
Huh? I need a quantum computer to process this comparison. In one scenario the driver is drunk (not the victim) and in the other, the drunk person is at the receiving end.
Huh? I need a quantum computer to process this comparison. In one scenario the driver is drunk (not the victim) and in the other, the drunk person is at the receiving end.