New bill seeks to clarify legal definition of sexual assault
After a recent bill was proposed by South Burlington representatives to codify the legal definition of sexual assault, a reporter took a look back at Vermont Law understood sexual assault in the past, and see what new bill wishes to achieve. Representatives of South Burlington John Killacky and Maida Townsend introduced the bill. In 1979 the first version of the bill was drafted. As everything first is doomed to be flawed. One of this flaws is exclusion of the possibility possibility of sexual assault between spouses. “A person who engages in a sexual act with another person, other than spouse,” read the law.
A 1985 amendment removed the “other than spouse” part from the statute. A later amendment in 1989 was focused on grammar changes. The biggest change happened in 2005, when there were new regulations about any sexual activities between teenagers under 16 and their guardians. Additionally, the new bill excluded the possibility of sexual contact with a spouse under 16. This partially represents change of marriage laws since in 2005, marriage under 16 was illegal already.
New amendments proposed by will expand the trial procedure rather than the exact definition. Before the law asked if potential assaulters knew about the conditions of the victim. New bill recommends putting “should have known” to fix this loophole. Additionally law hasn’t specified alcohol or any other drugs, and the bill will put being drunk or under drugs as a condition in different paragraphs. Because before the law claimed that drugs shouldn’t be administered without the will, and if they were, then the person in question committed crime. Now the law doesn’t ask who has administered drugs and with or without permission. It clearly states that a person under alcohol or other drugs can’t give consent.
The new bill also proposes to establish a new Intercollegiate Sexual Violence Prevention Council to educate young adults about rules and make a clear line between legal and illegal. The Council should work on developing and distributing programs for student’s education.
Additionally, the new bill plans to use at least $53,000 for creating this new council and at the same time stimulate Vermont Forensic Program “for the purpose of providing forensic medical care for sexual assault patients within primary care and reproductive health care settings.” This program is supposed to help victims recreate and recover from any potential injuries. Representative Selene Colburn said: “In 2019 over 14 hundred Vermonters reached out to member organization of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence after experiencing Sexual Violence.”
The Bill works in different directions and is even bigger than the amendment of 2005. It fixes potential loopholes removing excuse “I didn’t know,” it expands existing program that is focused or recreation to help victims faster re-integrate into society, it clarifies not clearly defined position of alcohol, and what is the most important it promotes education programs that will potentially prevent any unintentional sexual assaults.
The bill is now working its way through the Vermont Senate.
