R v Park [1995] 2 S.C.R. 836, is a Supreme Court of Canada case dealing with the mistaken belief defence – i.e. that the accused had an honest but mistaken belief that he had consent to engage in sexual relations with the complainant – and the role of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in relation to sexual assault.
R v Heywood 1994 3 S.C.R. 761 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the concept of fundamental justice in section seven of the Charter. The Court found that section 179(1)(b) of the Criminal Code for vagrancy was overbroad and thus violated section 7 and could not be saved under section 1.
In criminal law, consent may be used as an excuse and prevent the defendant from incurring liability for what was done.
The precise definitions of and punishments for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated rape vary by country and by legislature within a country.
In North America, the legal age of consent relating to sexual activity varies by jurisdiction.
R v Hess; R v Nguyen, [1990] 2 S.C.R. 906 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court struck down part of the Criminal Code offence of rape as a violation of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
State v. Limon, 280 Kan. 275, 122 P.3d 22 (2005), is a Kansas Supreme Court case in which a state law allowing for lesser punishment for statutory rape convictions if the partners were of different sexes than if they were of the same sex was found unconstitutional under both the federal and Kansas state constitutions. It was among the first cases to cite the United States Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas as precedent, months after the Virginia Supreme Court did similarly in Martin v. Ziherl.
The Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, is a United States federal statute, signed into law on March 23, 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur, declaring polygamy a felony in federal territories, punishable by "a fine of not more than five hundred dollars and by imprisonment for a term of not more than five years". The act is named for U.S. Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont. The Edmunds Act also prohibited "bigamous" or "unlawful cohabitation", thus removing the need to prove that actual marriages had occurred. The act not only reinforced the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act but also made the offense of unlawful cohabitation much easier to prove than polygamy misdemeanor and made it illegal for polygamists or cohabitants to vote, hold public office, or serve on juries in federal territories.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down the laws prohibiting consensual sexual activities between men. Basing its decision on the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – and in particular its explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation – the court unanimously ruled that the crime of sodomy, as well as various other related provisions of the criminal law, were unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent. Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sexual contact with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term statutory rape in the language of statutes. In statutory rape, overt force or threat is usually not present. Statutory rape laws presume coercion because a minor or mentally disabled adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act. It is also considered as statutory rape even if the victim is above age of consent, and if the perpetrator is in an authority position such as a teacher, a doctor or a parent.
In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
R v R[1991] UKHL 12 is a decision in which the House of Lords determined that under English criminal law, it is a crime for a husband to rape his wife.
Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.
(3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.
Rape by deception is a situation in which the perpetrator deceives the victim into participating in a sexual act to which they would otherwise not have consented, had they not been deceived. Deception can occur in many forms, such as illusory perceptions, false statements, and false actions.
Geldenhuys v National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down as unconstitutional a law which set the age of consent at 19 for homosexual sex but only 16 for heterosexual sex.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Montana.
Non-consensual condom removal, or "stealthing", is the practice of a person removing a condom during sexual intercourse without consent, when their sex partner has only consented to condom-protected sex. Victims are exposed to potential sexually transmitted diseasess (STDs) such as HIV/AIDS, or unwanted pregnancies. Such behaviour may be therefore regarded as sexual assault or rape, and sometimes as a form of reproductive coercion. As of 2020, stealthing is punishable as a form of sexual violence in some countries, such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 8–0 that in the context of statutory rape offenses that criminalize sexual intercourse based solely on the ages of the participants, the generic federal definition of "sexual abuse of a minor" requires the age of the victim to be less than 16. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the majority opinion.
Rape laws vary across the United States jurisdictions. However, rape is federally defined for statistical purposes as:
Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
R v Hutchinson, 2014 SCC 19 is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on sexual assault and consent under the Criminal Code. The Court upheld the sexual assault conviction of a defendant in a condom sabotage case, holding that the complainant's consent to sexual activity with him had been vitiated by fraud when he poked holes in his condom.
