On May 18, the last day of the legislative session, the House and Senate voted unanimously to change how sexual assault can be prosecuted by modernizing the definition of consent.
“Alaska took a gargantuan step forward in updating our laws,” said John Skidmore, deputy attorney general for the Criminal Division of the Alaska Department of Law. He spoke during a governor’s press conference the day after the session ended.
Under the bill, consent is defined as “a freely given, reversible agreement specific to the conduct at issue … ‘Freely given’ means agreement to cooperate in the act was positively expressed by word or action.”
The bill includes a provision for the trauma response of freezing: “Lack of consent through words or conduct means there is no consent. … lack of consent does not require verbal or physical resistance and may include inaction.”
Another provision of the bill puts into law a reduction in the timeframe for sexual assault kits to be processed to six months; the law currently requires rape kits be processed within a year.
Anchorage Rep. Geran Tarr is relieved her bill to modernize the definition of consent passed this year. “If we delay action, I know that between now and the next time I or anyone else will have the opportunity to address that, hundreds more Alaskans will be harmed,” she said during an interview last Thursday.
When a sexual assault is reported, a key element of establishing whether an assault took place is determining if consent was given. Current Alaska law requires the use of force or the threat of force. Simply saying no isn’t enough to establish that consent wasn’t given. Doing nothing at all or freezing — which is a common response to trauma — can be seen as consenting. The law has been like that for the past 40 years.
The changes almost did not make it through the Legislature. After more than a dozen committee hearings, Tarr’s bill on consent, House Bill 5, was stuck in the House Finance Committee on May 17, one day before the end of regular session.
Tarr was “looking for any vehicle possible that was a public safety piece of legislation that we might have been able to insert the language into,” thus providing a route to passage. “[House Bill] 325 was the perfect vehicle,” she said. Tarr coordinated with House Bill 325 sponsor, Anchorage Rep. Sara Rasmussen, whose bill dealt with domestic violence. HB325 had already passed the House and was waiting on Senate action.
On the last day of session, senators merged Tarr’s consent legislation into Rasmussen’s domestic violence bill, then passed the measure and sent it to the House, which also approved it, sending it to the governor for his consideration.
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