COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY NINETY-NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 596 and H.R. 4745 SEXUAL ABUSE ACT OF 1986 APRIL 29, 1986 Serial No. 77 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 61-771 O U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON 1986 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office JACK BROOKS, Texas COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY PETER W. RODINO, JR., New Jersey, Chairman ROBERT W. KASTENMEIER, Wisconsin BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts HARLEY O. STAGGERS, JR., West Virginia HAMILTON FISH, JR., New York F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., BILL MCCOLLUM, Florida WILLIAM E. DANNEMEYER, California PATRICK L. SWINDALL, Georgia Hoyer, Hon. Steny H., a Representative in Congress from the State of Mary- Prepared statement Lobel, Kerry, executive director, National Coalition Against Domestic Vio- Richard, Mark M., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Prepared statement ADDITIONAL MATERIAL Statement of Representative Bobbi Fiedler, a Representative in Congress from APPENDIX Statement of the Association on American Indian Affairs, Inc....... (III) SEXUAL ABUSE ACT OF 1986 TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1986 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 2:50 p.m., room 2237 Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Conyers, Gekas, and Coble. Staff present: Thomas W. Hutchison, counsel; Raymond V. Smietanka, associate counsel. Mr. CONYERS. The subcommittee will come to order. Today we're receiving testimony on H.R. 596, a bill to revise Federal rape laws. This bill is identical to a bill reported by the subcommittee last Congress, which became part of a crime package that overwhelmingly passed the House, but, unfortunately, did not become part of the final crime package enacted into law. There are three principal Federal rape statutes, and they date back to the 19th century. One simply makes it a Federal offense to commit rape, another makes it an offense to assault someone with the intent to commit rape. Neither specifically defines what constitutes rape. The courts have interpreted the two statutes to incorporate the common law definition that requires the defendant to have sexual intercourse with a woman, quote, "forcibly and against her will," unquote. The third statute makes it an offense to have sexual relations with-that is, carnally know-a female, not the defendant's wife, who is under the age of 16, commonly referred to as "statutory rape." Because under these statutes only a woman can be the victim of a rape offense, Federal statutes do not proscribe homosexual rape. The common law tradition from which the Federal statutes derive is not particularly inspiring. Rape laws ostensibly existed to protect women from having unwanted, coerced sexual intimacy, but the legal system frequently seemed to be more concerned with protecting males from conviction than with protecting females from criminally injurious conduct. An exception to this, of course, is in the classic instance where the victim is white and the accused is black. The legal system's undue concern with protecting males is seen in several doctrines that developed in the rape law area. The spousal exemption doctrine, for example, held that a man could not rape his wife no matter how brutally the act was carried out. Rape was, (1) |