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University Daily Kansan, April 6. 1983
House OKs spousal rape bill
By DIANE LUBER Staff Reporter
TOPERA — The Kansas House yesterday followed the lead the Senate took last week and approved, after a spirted debate, a bill that would drastically change Kansas rape laws.
The House voted 66-55 to approve the Senate version of the bill, which would completely eliminate the protection measures have had from rape charges.
The bill now goes to the Gov. John Carlin.
After the vote, State Rep. Betty Jo Charlton, D-Lawrence, said that she thought the governor would sign the bill.
STATE REP. ROBERT FREY, L-Riberal, hold the house that the Senate had changed the bill to make the statute unenforced and rape outside of marriage the same.
"What the bill now says is that if rape is committed, it doesn't really matter if you are married, if you live together, if you are married, if you are strangers," Frey said.
But State Rep. Arthur Dowille, R-Overland Park, who has opposed eliminating spousal protection since it was first brought up in House committee hearings, said, "I don't know what is so important about this bill that takes precedence over highways and other issues."
He was unwilling to discuss the details of the bill, he said, because
young people were present in the House chambers.
State Rep Marvin Barkis, D-Louisburg, urged the house to send the bill to a conference committee, where members could work out their difference.
THE LAW SHOULD PROVIDE different penalties for rapes within marriage and outside marriage, he said. And rapes that involve physical violence should be distinguished from rapes that do not, he said.
"There ought to be a sexual crime and there ought to be degrees to the offense," Barkis said. "We ought to first, second, and third-degree rape."
Charlton accused Barkis of talking around the issue.
"It has always been male members of the House — and especially lawyers — who have had a lot of rage, and have haunted a few rape cases they know more about rape than women.
"He didn't really say it, but what he maintains is that there is rape with bodily injury and there is rape without bodily injury."
"Rape_always involves bodily injury."
STATE REP. ROBERT Wunsch, R-Kingman, criticized the bill because it eliminated spousal protection from rape charges, but gave spouses protection from charges of sexual battery, a crime created by the bill.
"If a husband sexually batters his wife, it's not a crime," he said. "But if he is sexually raped her, it is a crime."
State Rep. Anita Niles, D-Lebo, said she agreed with Wunsch's criticism.
But Frey said that lawmakers had created the crime of sexual battery to distinguish, especially on police records, between a person who committed battery and a person who sexually abused people.
State Rep. Vic Miller, D-Toppea, responded to legislators who had said that rape within marriage would be difficult to prove.
"THE ABILITY TO PROVE rape is difficult even outside of marriage," he said. "But even though it's difficult to prove, it doesn't mean we shouldn't make it a crime."
Douville, in one final attempt to sway House members before they cast their votes, said that because the bill eliminated the rape victim's need to prove resistance to obtain conviction, the bill would make sexual intercourse between a man and his wife rape if the wife called it rape.
Other provisions in the bill:
- expand the definition of rape to include rape with an object.
- create the offenses of sexual battery, a misdemeanor, and aggravated sexual battery, a felony, to cover sex-related crimes that are not rape.
- allow charges of rape to be made against women as well as men.
- apply the shield statute, which makes a rape victim's previous sexual conduct inadmissible in court, to other sex-related cases.
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Prowling skunks plague residents
By DAVID SWAFFORD
Staff Reporter
Take a drive down any county road these days and you will probably notice several dead animals along the road's shoulder.
According to Rob Ladner, state game protector with the Kansas Fish and Game Commission, this is the time of year when skunks and other small raccoons, such as opossums and raccoons, are looking for mates and den sites.
The animal activity, however, is not limited to rural areas.
"I've seen skunks cross Massachusetts Street late at night," Ladner said.
One Lawrence resident who has had recent problems with skunks and opossums on his property is Howard Smith, KU professor of aerospace engineering.
"THE SKUNKS DUG A TUNNEL underneath my front porch and have been living down there. Occasionally, opossums have gotten down underneath the porch as well," said Smith,
who lives at 1612 Crescent Road.
raccoons loved to get into garbage cans.
He was not sure whether the skunks had left his property.
Smith said he caught two raccoons going through his trash crush lates one night three years ago. "They looked in the trash and saw a pair of hands in the cookie jar," he chuckled.
"I filled up the hole with bricks, but they could easily dig around them," he
ACCORDING TO LADNER, garbage or pet food left outside are a good source of food for the animals. He said
People should clean up their sheds, fill in around the patios and remove all potential food sources to prevent the spread of bacteria. They also themselves in a particular spot, Lander said.
Over the last three weeks, animal control officers have caught three skunks and two oposses at Smith's house. Smith said he thought the animals came from the wooded southeast corner of 15th and Iowa streets.
He recommended mothballs for initially driving the animals from any area.
Smith said the skunks might leave if they could no longer find grubworms to eat in his yard, so he planned to spread a chemical on it to kill the worms.
Wild animals have caused problems for city residents before. Ladner said that in 1982, animal control officers live-trapped 97 opusons, 54 skunks, and 20 raccoons in Lawrence. He said that the "city animals" were attracted to sheds or holes around patio to use as dens.
Donald Dalquist, Lawrence police
sergeant, is in charge of the animal
HE SAID THE UNIT WAS CREATED about five years ago. The animals are live-trapped and most are taken out to Clinton reservoir, because it is far enough away from the city that the animals will no longer be a mansure.
People should call the Kansas Fish and Game Commission at 887-6882 or the animal control unit at 841-7210, if they are not in town. Animals removed from their property.
The University of Kansas Theatre Prodsly Presents
A Special Benefit Performance of
Jack B. Wright as William Allen White in Henry Haskell's
The Sage of Emporia
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, 1983·University Theatre/Murphy Hall
Tickets on sale March 29th to the Murphy Hall Bowl Office. All seats reserved for reservations. 949-894-7862. $5, $4-$5 special discounts for students and senior citizens.
Proceeds from this performance will be used to defray the costs of Staging
The Sage of Emporia April 17 as a part of the Portraits in Motion
Series at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
in its world premiere at CIC in 1986. The Sign of Empires has attracted audiences across the
konsultant business. This benefit performance will play the role to be adapted as a solution to
the problems in the city.
Only local performance/One might only!
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