New York to close rape-law loophole after Cornell case showed the system failing a survivor

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday said the state will close a gap in its sexual-assault law that has made it difficult to prosecute rape when the survivor voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs, a legal barrier laid bare by a Cornell University student's case. Under current New York law, a person is considered mentally incapacitated mainly when a substance was administered without their consent. Prosecuting cases where the victim consumed alcohol or drugs voluntarily and became severely impaired remains significantly more complex, and often no charges are filed at all. New York is one of 19 US states with similar provisions. The case at issue involves a former Cornell student who alleged in a civil lawsuit that seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity raped her at the fraternity house in 2024 after coercing her into consuming drugs. The Tompkins County District Attorney, Matthew Van Houten, initially declined to bring charges, citing the accuser's voluntary consumption of drugs and alcohol under existing state law. The woman told Cornell campus police she was "100 percent confident that she had been raped", according to a transcript of her interview, but that statement was omitted from the materials Cornell police sent to the district attorney's office. The case was closed in 2024 without the DA's office interviewing the woman, anyone else involved, or requesting the full transcript. It was reopened last month after the woman filed her civil lawsuit. Hochul said she lost faith in Van Houten's handling of the matter, appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor, and criticised Cornell police for their account to prosecutors. "This woman, this young woman, had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable," Hochul said on Friday. "And then at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her." She added: "Voluntary intoxication is not a license for sexual assault or gang rape. Period." Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff has agreed to an independent review of the university's handling of the case, and the DA's office says the case will be presented to a grand jury. State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and State Senator Natalia Fernandez are sponsoring legislation that would let prosecutors build cases based solely on whether a person was too intoxicated to consent, regardless of how they became impaired; Dinowitz has sought the change since 2019. Shiwali Patel of the National Women's Law Center called it "astounding" that the loophole still exists, noting the vast majority of campus sexual assaults involve alcohol or drugs.