O’Dea Votes to Strengthen CT Sexual Assault Laws

HARTFORD- State Rep. Thomas O’Dea (New Canaan and Wilton) supported legislation addressing an inadequacy in current law on sexual assault which would hold offenders accountable when they sexually assault individuals with intellectual disabilities.

This legislation addresses the State v. Fourtin, 2009 Connecticut Appellate Court case which was affirmed by the Connecticut Supreme Court in 2012. The bill now moves to the State Senate for final approval.

O’Dea said, “The Fourtin decision exposed a complete insufficiency in the law, the legislature needed to address immediately. We should not be re-victimizing the victims by making it more difficult to prosecute the offenders who have sexually assaulted them.”

The Appellate Court ruled that although the victim had significant disabilities…including cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities and hydrocephalus, they were not persuaded that the complainant was either unconscious or so uncommunicative that she was physically incapable of manifesting to the defendant her lack of consent. Specifically, the Court found that because the victim “could communicate using various nonverbal methods”…“no reasonable jury could have concluded that the victim was physically helpless.”

The current law only defines “physically helpless” as “unable to consent to sexual contact, or that a person must be unconscious or in a state akin to unconsciousness.

HB-6641, An Act Concerning the Sexual Assault of Persons Whose Ability to Communicate Lack of Consent is Substantially Impaired, provides that sexual intercourse or sexual contact with a person, whose ability to resist or communicate consent is substantially impaired because of such person’s mental or physical condition, constitutes the offense of sexual assault.

People with disabilities face the highest rates of sexual victimization of any population in our country. According to the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, up to 83% of women and 32% of men with developmental disabilities will experience some kind of sexual abuse during their lifetime.