It's an excellent line in some of these cases that are coming out recently because people are using all of these social media apps to meet, and there are a lot of inferences and innuendos between the parties on the dating app before they meet.
So, a lot of times, men are coming into these meetings thinking they're going to get involved with sex based on what the women are saying. The next thing you know, something happens.
There's alcohol involved, maybe drugs involved, some sex, and after the fact, the woman all of a sudden is all sad and upset about what happened, so then the police are calling people and trying to investigate them.
This is when you're going to need to get an attorney involved immediately because sex crime charges are serious.
Is Consent a Reasonable Claim in PC 261 Rape Cases?
The difference between rape (Penal Code 261) and consent is a very close-call sometimes and an excellent line. Usually, you're looking at reasonableness. In other words, if somebody tells you no, I don't want to have sex with you, and then you proceed to have sex with them anyway, you're going to put yourself in a terrible position.
And if you get involved with somebody off of one of these dating apps and the person is drunk or high on some other substance. You end up taking advantage of that person and having sex with them, and they wake up in the morning and claim that you did not have permission to have sex with them; you've now put yourself in an actual lousy position.
So, this line between raping somebody (CALCRIM 1000) and them consenting to have sex with you is a tricky area of the law, especially if somebody's getting drunk. Because if somebody's drunk, the question becomes, can that person even consent to have sex with you?
If they're so drunk, you're going to be accused of raping an unconscious person (CALCRIM 1002). Then, they will get one of those SART exams where they're checked.
They're going to see if there's any type of injury in their vagina consistent with somebody forcibly having sex with them, and that can occur, as we know, from just having rough sex with somebody that the person consents to.
You will think in your head that nobody's going to claim that somebody raped the when they didn't rape them. The problem is you don't realize it's happening every day of the week. That's the problem. That's what people don't realize.
Women are not afraid, especially in this whole “me too” movement age, to say that a man raped them, even if the person put them in a position to have sex with another person and is just crying sour grapes after. It's wild.
It can be as little as all the person did was not call to check on the other individual to make sure they got home safely. Now, that individual is hurt. Now they start back-tracking and thinking and wait a minute. I disagreed. That person took advantage of me. The next thing you know, you're being investigated or even accused of raping another individual.
Dating Apps and Meeting People Online
It's gotten to the point where people are saying I've got to get the other party to sign a consent agreement before I can have sex with them. I don't think it's gotten that far, but I do believe that these dating apps and meeting people online and then trying to have sex with them the first time you meet them is a situation that is ripe for problems.
Now if you've dated the person for a long time and the next thing you know, they're trying to accuse you of some rape charge, that starts to give you an argument — wait a minute. We were together. We've had sex before.
Just because this person decided to drink a bunch, and I thought it was okay because we had sex before, and they were seemingly OK with it. What you have to realize is that when you're using these dating apps, and you're meeting the person for the first time that night, and within ten minutes of meeting him, you're having sex with them, that already smacks of a non-consensual encounter.
That's the problem. You're starting on a bad foot. You're putting yourself in the wrong position. So, don't have sex with somebody the first time you meet them, especially if the person is highly intoxicated. You put yourself in an actual lousy position.
You're just gambling with your future because the line between consent and non-consent when it comes to a rape case in Los Angeles County is very blurry nowadays.
Don't Make Statements to Law Enforcement
So, if you're being accused of some non-consensual rape with another person, you better get an attorney immediately. I wouldn't speak to law enforcement because a lot of times, what law enforcement does is they claim you said something that you didn't say, or they claim you said something in a certain way that you didn't mean to say.
The point is, speaking to the police very rarely yields you anything of benefit, but it certainly can produce something that puts you in a worse position than if you just had kept your mouth shut.
That's why attorneys say, be quiet, especially in these sex crime cases, because people think they're going to out-smart the police, and a lot of times I have people saying, oh yeah, I didn't have sex with the person because they're trying to protect themselves. Then the police are like, well, we have DNA.
Oh, well, I did have sex with the person, but — See, now you've already put yourself in the wrong position because you've lied. Now they have the combination of you having sex with somebody after meeting them for an hour, and on top of that, you're lying about it.
Retain a Criminal Defense Lawyer
So, the point is, don't make any statements. Hire an attorney immediately. Let the attorney act as the buffer between you and the police. If you're being accused of some date rape charge related to the internet or other circumstances, you better discuss the whole thing with your attorney. Then, you can figure out whether you have an excellent consent argument.
A lot of these consent arguments are just reasonable under the circumstances. Was it reasonable under the circumstances for you to believe that it was okay to have sex with that person?
And the way they're going to try to catch you is that person will text you and accuse you of things or call you and start accusing you of things. The next thing you know, the police are looking at those text messages, and then they're using your responses — you say you're sorry about what happened against you as admissions that you had non-consensual sex and raped that person.
