Are you kidding me?! He has a huge arrest record and is HIV-positive AND raped someone. The woman could contract HIV on top of everything else. This man should be locked up for good.

Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with people with HIV. I just think it makes the crime even more hideous that he knew he had HIV and raped her anyway, no condom. I consider that akin to attempted murder.

Oh god, they can't be SERIOUS. Really, it's okay to rape a woman just because she has a history of sleepwalking? The excuses get wilder and wilder, and I fear more and more for what my (as yet non-existent) children will have to deal with. There is something very seriously wrong with gender roles in "western" society if this kind of excuse is even considered the slightest bit plausible.

Well if the police could tell she was still asleep, the "suspect" should have been able to tell too.

so, if this defense works, where exactly would the difference be between "sleepwalking" and being drugged or drunk while she was being raped? I'm pretty sure that lots of people have said that women gave consent when they were incapacitated...

I'm pretty sure that in southern Ontario (Canada) there has been a case of a woman who willingly slept with several army men in order to infect them with HIV. I do beleive she was convicted of attempted murder. I can't see why this man shouldn't face the same. But it scares me that this type of defense is even allowed, though I have heard of it used in a murder trial before.

It's not rape if the victim asleep. It's not rape if the rapist is asleep. Apparently consciousness is truly optional in sexual activity so far as our legal system is concerned. And if that doesn't scare the shit out of you, then you're not paying attention.

good god. this stuff scares me. and I completely agree with the top statement someone made, he should be convicted of attempted murder. Honestly I can't think of anything more awful than enduring rape and finding out you have HIV.

I'm fairly certain that this will not stand up with a jury or on appeal. That's not to say it's not ridiculous.

A smart prosecutor (we can only hope one exists) will say that, even if she was sleeping, it is rape. After all, slipping someone a roofy to lower inhibitions is still rape.

I was so pissed when I read this yesterday, and had the same thought as another commenter. If she was still asleep, and the police could see that when they arrived, then it had to be obvious to the assailant.

the next ridiculous defense we hear will probably claim that the victim had amnesia and didn't remember giving consent.

It's an interesting case. If it is as presented here, the suspect is definitely going away -- although probably to a mental health facility.

However. I'm guessing the previous commenters have never been sleepwalkers. I am. I have had entire interactions with people while asleep without them ever realizing I was under. And I don't mean while we're lying in bed -- I mean after I'd gotten dressed and joined them in another room. I wonder if she was taking Ambien. When the reports say "asleep" I think people get this notion of someone with her eyes closed, supine and snoring. Not so. Just wanted to point that out.

I use to be a sleepwalker, I'd get up and do things around the house while being completely asleep. Apparently there is a sort of incoherence to me when I'm like that so that people can actually tell that i'm "not all there". I can't imagine this women being completely audible in her state.. I'm sure she may have appeared at least somewhat impared.

"It goes to consent," he said. "How is he to know she is sleepwalking, if it's a dream 'yes' or a real 'yes?'"

I know the answer to this one. They were on the fucking highway! You don't have sex with someone in public! He doesn't have to know if she's conscious! It's against the law to have sex with someone in public!

Needless to say, the sex wasn't consensual. Any idiot can tell the difference between someone who's sleepwalking and someone who's awake.

Is the world just full of sociopaths?

I've dealt with a sleepwalker who didn't seem asleep, but she didn't seem with it either. If I hadn't known she was sleepwalking I would have assumed she was out of her mind on drugs, and certainly still incapable of consent. I don't believe that a sleepwalker -even one fully dressed and carrying on conversations -can seem together enough to give consent.

Consent requires a decision made by a person in their right mind, yes? Incapacitation is not an excuse? It isn't consent just because she didn't say no. It isn't even enough that she may have said, "Yes, and do you see the flying ponies?"

Oh, I hope this one doesn't go the way I think it will in trial.

"I know the answer to this one. They were on the fucking highway! You don't have sex with someone in public! He doesn't have to know if she's conscious! It's against the law to have sex with someone in public!"
Plus there's the fact that he's twice her age, they've never met before, and it looked like he needed a good shower with a fire hose. Something tells me that no normal woman would have said yes to this strange man even if they weren't by a highway.

"However. I'm guessing the previous commenters have never been sleepwalkers. I am. I have had entire interactions with people while asleep without them ever realizing I was under. And I don't mean while we're lying in bed -- I mean after I'd gotten dressed and joined them in another room"

My son just started sleepwalking, we think as a result of a new asthma medication. The first time it happened I thought he was awake. He was upset and agitated, but carried on a conversation with me. Never having dealt with a sleep walker before, I really had no clue he was asleep.

After a while, he drifted back in to "regular" sleep, and I figured it out.

So, in theory, I can see someone consenting to sex while sleepwalking.

In terms of the actual specifics of this case, though, it sounds like the guy is a creep and I hope that they have enough other evidence to put him away.

Okay, this doesn't apply to this PARTICULAR case, it seems-- too many things should have made it obvious, like them being in public-- but as for "it's rape if she consents when she's sleepwalking..."

I am reminded of a story from a few years ago when a woman accused her boyfriend of rape because she would wake up and he was having sex with her. He said she had woken up and even initiated it. It took them a counselor and a camera in the bedroom to realize that she was, in her sleep, initiating the sex. The woman dropped the charges in that case, but I think it demonstrates that that sort of thing has to be decided on a case-by-case basis and sometimes, the "rapist" can genuinely not be at fault.

That said, any judge would have to review such a case VERY carefully, and from the sound of it, this man deserves to be put in jail. Maybe she did "consent" but there is no way he didn't know there was something weird going on there.

this is truly nauseating :(

and i have a hard time picture him finding this stumbling sleep-walking woman outside somewhere and being like HAI CAN WE HAVE SEX?! and her mumbling a "yes" and then .. yeah... NO. i find it very hard to believe he couldnt tell she was sleepwalking, this is utter BS.

i thought she was screaming for help when the good samaritans found her. was she asleep then too?

Plus there's the fact that he's twice her age, they've never met before, and it looked like he needed a good shower with a fire hose. Something tells me that no normal woman would have said yes to this strange man even if they weren't by a highway.

I thought of this as well, but I quickly changed my mind since I didn't want to make any assumptions. If we live in a world where a lawyer would actually make a defense that saying yes while sleepwalking is consent to sex, then having sex with a dirty old man on the highway doesn't seem all that outrageous anymore. Also, according to this lawyers defense, all of the responsibility is put on the woman. Even if she wasn't sleeping, the man shouldn't have had sex with her anyway. If he were a responsible man, he would have declined any sexual advances by anyone in a public place because having sex in a public place is illegal. But nobody's expecting him to think before he whips it out.

I guarantee we'll hear "But her walk said 'yes!'" in the near future.

Jail is to good for him, he deserves to have his pecker snipped off.

WE have had the reverse version over here in the UK - a guy acquitted of rape because HE was sleepwalking. We had a lot of heated debate about it over on my blog.

Sleepwalking-type problems run in my mother's family, and I've experienced them in myself and in my relatives enough to know that a "consent" in that kind of state would NOT resemble a legally valid, all-faculties present consent. Even if he asked her and she made an intelligible reply, she would have been noticeably out of it.

This is rape, no matter what they want to call it.

The problem is really that the lawyer is bound to do the best job he can defending this man, and this was probably the most obvious thing to pick up on and try to twist. Will it work? Probably not. Is it revolting? Absolutely. But I can guarantee you he would say he's just doing his job. The right to representation is an ethical quagmire and I don't know what we can do.

Erm, I'm not sure we also want to suggest that because the suspect was dirty and old that no one could possibly have consented. (Do I have to add NOT THAT I CLAIM SHE DID IN THIS CASE? But... because she was younger than he and had a home, I don't exactly think that points in either direction.)

I agree with Greensprout- I think a public defender assigned to the case just had to figure out some way to defend Dexter Ford.
All the news stories on this note that the assailant has a history of schizophrenia and so he will likely end up in some mental facility.

"'Plus there's the fact that he's twice her age, they've never met before, and it looked like he needed a good shower with a fire hose. Something tells me that no normal woman would have said yes to this strange man even if they weren't by a highway.'"

"I thought of this as well, but I quickly changed my mind since I didn't want to make any assumptions. If we live in a world where a lawyer would actually make a defense that saying yes while sleepwalking is consent to sex, then having sex with a dirty old man on the highway doesn't seem all that outrageous anymore"

I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing his lawyer tries is a "dirty old men on the highway have a right to sex too even if they're oppressed by women refusing consent so they have to rape to get it" defense...

Seems like a stretch, but it's not impossible. I've consented in my sleep while using sleep meds. Granted, it was my husband (who thought I was being weird but had no idea I was actually asleep until the next day - weird is a generally normal state for me. It was just different weird), and not a dirty old stranger, but it is theoretically possible.

No comments on the particular case.