Opinion ID: 1041292
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Michigan 's Reform Statute

Text: In developing the 1975 rape law reforms, Washington's legislature relied heavily on Michigan's example. Loh, supra, at 552-53. Michigan was one of the 31 LAWS OF 1975, 1st Ex. Sess., ch. 14, § 4, ch. 247 § 2. 32 RCW 9A.44.040(1 ). 33 RCW 9A.44.045. 34 RCW 9A.44.050(1)(a). 35 RCW 9A.44.050(1)(b). 36 RCW 9A.44.050(c)-(e). 27 State v. Lynch (Jeffrey Thomas), No. 87882-0 (Gordon McCloud, J., Concurrence) first states to reform its rape laws, and its victim protections are considered among the strongest in the nation? 7 The reform statute Michigan enacted in 1974, which replaced the term rape with the term criminal sexual conduct, 38 eliminated corroboration and resistance requirements and included a highly restrictive rape shield law? 9 Michigan's reform statute also omits any reference to the alleged victim's consent in its basic definitions of criminal sexual conduct. 40 In spite of this omission, Michigan courts have not relieved the prosecution of the burden of proving nonconsent. 41 Rather, they have reasoned that consent 37 David P. Bryden & Sonja Lengnick, Rape in the Criminal Justice System, 87 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1194, 1225 (1997); Julie Homey & Cassia Spohn, Rape Law Reform and Instrumental Change in Six Urban Jurisdictions, 25 LAW & Soc'y REV. 117, 121-23 (1991); Harriett R. Galvin, Shielding Rape Victims in the State and Federal Courts: A Proposal for the Second Decade, 70 MINN. L. REV. 763, 765 nJ (1987). 38 MICH. COMP. LAWS§§ 750.520a-750.5201. 39 Bryden, supra note 37, at 1225. 40 In Michigan's Criminal Sexual Conduct statute, references to the alleged victim's consent appear only in the provision criminalizing sexual contact between a health care professional and his or her patient. The victim's consent is expressly disallowed as a defense where [t]he actor is a mental health professional and the sexual contact occurs within 2 years after the period in which the victim is his or her client or patient and not his or her spouse. MICH. COMP. LAWS§ 750.520e(l)(e). 41 See, e.g., People v. Bayer, 279 Mich. App. 49, 67, 756 N.W.2d 242 ('Although the statute is silent on the defense of consent, we believe it impliedly comprehends that a willing, noncoerced act of sexual intimacy or intercourse between persons of sufficient age who are neither mentally defective, . . . mentally incapacitated, . . . nor physically helpless, ... is not criminal sexual conduct.' (quoting People v. Khan, 80 Mich. App. 605, 619 n.5, 264 N.W.2d 360 (1978))),judgment vacated in part on other grounds, 482 Mich. 100, 756 N.W.2d 77 (2008). 28 State v. Lynch (Jeffrey Thomas), No. 87882-0 (Gordon McCloud, J., Concurrence) 42 negate[ s] the elements of force or coercion and that the prosecution must therefore disprove consent beyond a reasonable doubt wherever the defendant 43 produces evidence sufficient to put the issue in controversy. To the extent that Michigan's reform statute appears to remove nonconsent as an element of criminal sexual conduct, courts have recognized that this is only because it is redundant to require the prosecution to prove nonconsent where it is clearly implied by the use of force (i.e., the perpetrator's use of a weapon or commission 44 of the rape during a burglary or kidnapping). 42 People v. Waltonen, 272 Mich. App. 678, 689, 728 N.W.2d 881 (2006) (citing People v. Stull, 127 Mich. App. 14, 19-21, 338 N.W.2d 403 (1983) (In the context of the [Criminal Sexual Conduct] statutes, consent can be utilized as a defense to negate the elements of force or coercion.)). 43 People v. Thompson, 117 Mich. App. 522, 528-29, 324 N.W.2d 22 (1982). The only exception to this rule occurs where force or coercion is not an element of the crime charged, and the statute does not otherwise expressly provide for the defense of consent. See, e.g., Waltonen, 272 Mich. App. at 686-87 & n.2, 689 (rejecting consent defense in the context of statute criminalizing sexual penetration [that] occurs under circumstances involving the commission of any other felony (quoting People v. Pettaway, 94 Mich. App. 812, 815, 290 N.W.2d 77 (1980))). Waltonen criticized Thompson's reasoning, but it did so only because force and coercion are not elements of crime with which the defendant in Thompson was charged. Waltonen, 272 Mich. App. at 688-89. Waltonen did not question Thompson's assertion that, where force or coercion is an element of the charged offense, the prosecution bears the burden of disproving a colorable claim of consent. Id. 44 The authors of Michigan's reform statute recognized that it was redundant to require proof of nonconsent where it was clearly implied by the facts of the alleged crime. Khan, 80 Mich. App. at 619 n.5 ('If actual force or threat of force sufficient to meet the force requirement can be shown, it is redundant to also require a separate showing of nonconsent as part of the case in chief. . . . This is the approach of the reform legislation.' (quoting Virginia Nordby, Legal Effects of Proposed Rape Reform 29 State v. Lynch (Jeffrey Thomas), No. 87882-0 (Gordon McCloud, J., Concurrence)