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California Rape Laws

According to a report by the NY Daily News, two California teens were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their “evil deeds” in a sadistic attack on an 87-year-old woman. Raymond Miranda, age 15, and Ruben Melanson, age 16, beat the victim, sexually assaulted her and poured bleach down her throat before leaving her for dead.

The teen defendants attacked the victim while she was asleep in April 2014. The defendants snuck into a senior complex in the small city of Hemet and began torturing the woman, authorities say. The teens will go to a juvenile facility until they are 18 years old and then be transferred to an adult prison.

In California, rape is defined as an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person not the spouse of the perpetrator, under the following circumstances:

• Where a person is incapable, because of a mental disorder or developmental or physical disability, of giving legal consent, and this is known or reasonably should be known to the person committing the act.
• Where it is accomplished against a person’s will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the person or another.
• Where a person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused.
• Where a person is at the time unconscious of the nature of the act, and this is known to the accused. More specifically, the victim is incapable of resisting because the victim is any one of the following conditions:
  • unconscious or asleep
  • not aware, knowing, perceiving, or cognizant that the act occurred
  • not aware, knowing, perceiving, or cognizant of the essential characteristics of the act due to the perpetrator’s fraud in fact.
  • not aware, knowing, perceiving, or cognizant of the essential characteristics of the act due to the perpetrator’s fraudulent representation that the sexual penetration served a professional purpose when it served no professional purpose.

• Where a person submits under the belief that the person committing the act is someone known to the victim other than the accused, and this belief is induced by any artifice, pretense, or concealment practiced by the accused, with intent to induce the belief.

• Where the act is accomplished against the victim’s will by threatening to retaliate in the future against the victim or any other person, and there is a reasonable possibility that the perpetrator will execute the threat.

• Where the act is accomplished against the victim’s will by threatening to use the authority of a public official to incarcerate, arrest, or deport the victim or another, and the victim has a reasonable belief that the perpetrator is a public official.

The punishment, for rape in California includes 3, 6, or 8 years in California state prison. If the victim is a minor the minimum sentence is 7 years and the maximum is 13 years. Rape is a serious felony offense. A conviction for rape can tarnish your reputation, and require registration as a sex offender.

If you are facing a rape charge in the Los Angeles area, or a similar sex offense, you need an attorney who can advocate in your defense. The attorneys at The Rodriguez Law Group have the experience and dedication to assist with your case.

To learn more, call our Los Angeles criminal defense law firm at 213-995-6767 or visit our contact us page to send us an email.