Moods wrote:The issue of drunkenness is an interesting one. Who here hasn't had sex with someone when they weren't drunk? Half of us would be still be virgins if you couldn't have sex with drunk ppl?
Does that mean that most of us have been raped at some stage in our lives? Not to trivialise what has happened here, but surely it's the degree of intoxication that's important here, and by degree I mean just about comatose. Unless I'm reading TOT post wrong, but I read it that the accused is held accountable if the victim is drunk but not if he is drunk? That makes no sense at all to me. In this case the accused didn't ply the victim with alcohol unwittingly did he? The victim made a conscious decision to drink.
You can still make decisions when drunk. Decisions that you may later regret, but they are still decisions. How many ppl regret drink driving? Some are only just over some are 5 times over the limit over, and are nearly comatose. There have been cases where the accused has literally fallen out of his car when pulled over. No-one has pulled the charges later and said,'he was so pissed he didn't know what he was doing.'
I reckon Lovett has half a chance. If he can prove that it was reasonable for this female to
want to have sex with him by her actions throughout the night, well I reckon he has a chance of getting off the charges. If he believed that she was consenting, and that she was consenting to him and not Gram, then there is no rape I would have thought. If she says she was consenting b/c she thought it was Gram, and then once she realised it was Lovett she withdrew consent and Lovett stopped his actions, I still don't see a crime.
I would have thought the victim is better off saying she had closer to 12 drinks than 6 drinks. Very hard to get comatose drunk on 6 drinks - they'd want to be pretty powerful drinks.
Yes, you did read it wrong. I don't know how you got to 'I read it that the accused is held accountable if the victim is drunk but not if he is drunk?'
His degree of intoxication is immaterial, with or without subsequent regret, being almost comatose, whatever. And, him not plying her with alcohol is also irrelevant.
Yes, she is responsible for getting drunk. And, if she had committed a crime while drunk, that responsibility would flow through to her being charged for that crime.
The fact she is responsible for her own drunkeness does not negate the responsibility on another to seek and obtain her consent, and that it be 'freely agreed'. The law states there is a level of intoxication where it is not possible to freely agree to consensual sex. It is that simple. What's not simple is establishing whether an individual is above or below the threshold. That is why evidence as to her behaviour is used to establish her level of impairment or incapacity.
From what I've read, if true, then I doubt she was in a state to freely agree. Of course, that also raises the question of whether Lovett even sought her free agreement. And, Gram's actions also support the contention she was not in a fit state to freely agree anything!
It is also not sufficient for a defence to say 'I believed she was consenting". That defence went out in ages ago, not just in rape cases, for good reason. Belief might be relevant in cases of religious freedom, but bugger all else.
And, why did Lovett leave after the first episode (the first charge)? Unless he can come up with something plausible, and knock over the girlfriend's corroboration, his chances of defying the notion that he left in response to her saying 'no' will be significantly diminished. As Merv Williams used to say 'he's like the boy with the barra....'
'I have no new illusions, and I have no old illusions' - Vladimir Putin, Geneva, June 2021
...you do the shooting of that loser...and i will do the clean up..... 
