University Dally Kansan, February 17, 1983
Page 3
House tentatively OKs rape law changes
By DIANE LUBER Staff Reporter
TOPEKA — The Kansas House gave tentative approval yesterday to a bill that would decrease but not eliminate the protection spouses have from
The bill would allow a spouse to be prosecuted for rape if it occurred when the couple were living in separate residences or when either spouse had filed for divorce, separation or annulment.
THE BILL WOULD also create the offense of aggravated rape within a marriage - defined as sexual intercourse with a spouse when the offender is unlawfully on the victim, or uses or threatens to use force or a deadly weapon.
The House is scheduled to take a final vote on the bill today.
vote of the house.
A previous version of the bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee had entirely eliminated spousal protection by creating the offense of rape within a marriage.
Rape within a marriage was defined as sexual intercourse with a spouse without that spouse's consent.
On the House floor, State Rep. Joan Wagnon, D-Topeka, introduced the amendment that would give spouses limited protection. The amendment took the offense of rape within a marriage out of the committee bill.
BEFORE THE VOTE, State Rep. Robert Frey, R-Liberal, urged the House members to eliminate the protection from rape charges that the bill granted to spouses.
"Why don't we go another step?" he said. "The amendment says it OK to rape your wife. You just can't get violent."
"Are you afraid your wives are going to go down and use this against you?" In response to some legislators' concerns that an elimination of the spousal protections would make life difficult, Frey said the 11 states that had eliminated the spousal protection had not experienced any difficulties with enforcement.
STATE REP. Arthur Douville, R-Overland Park, said he opposed the amended bill because he thought existing laws against assault and battery were applicable.
Frey is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
"Hape is the easiest crime for a woman to allege. But if a man accused a woman of rape, he would be laughed off the street."
"No one wants to see a wife raped," he said. "But any woman who is assaulted by her husband can file criminal charges against him."
The House also adopted an amendment proposed by State Rep Michael Peterson, D-Kansas City to put the crime of adultery back into the bill.
PETERSON SAID he had, proposed the amendment because he had thought the removal of the crime of adultery from the bill would endanger the bill's passage.
Wagnon said about the amended bill.
"A lot of people deserve credit for this. It was a real team effort."
LINDA WOODY, a representative of the Kansas National Organization for Women, said that the new version of the bill was a step forward, but that the House had not gone far enough.
"Rape is rape," she said. "There is no rape without violence."
One out of every seven married women is raped, she said. But she said that in the 11 states that have eliminated spousal protection, there have not been a large number of rape charges, as anticipated by the House.
Only 23 cases have been filed, she said, and 49 percent of them have been prosecuted.
The bill would also:
*eliminate the victim's need to prove resistance to obtain conviction
- expand the definition of rape to include rape with an object.
- make women as well as men subject to the provisions of the rape statute.
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WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS THE FEDERAL AND STATE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE WILL BE TAKING ACTION ON A BILL THAT WOULD RAISE THE LEGAL DRINKING AGE IN KANSAS TO 21. A.S.K. BELIEVES THAT THIS IS A SIMPLISTIC SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM THAT OUR SOCIETY MUST FACE. WE DON'T WANT THE LEGISLATURE REVOKING RIGHTS FOR ONE SEGMENT OF THE POPULATION WHEN THEY ARE NOT THE MAIN CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM.
*FACT: LESS THAN 5% OF ALL ALCOHOL RELATED DEATHS ARE CAUSED BY ADULTS BETWEEN 18-20 YEARS OLD.*
The remains are estimated by archaeologists to be some 10,000 years old, if so, might predate the remains of a woman found recently by state anthropologists at a burial site near Round Rock, Texas.
This announcement sponsored by the BSU, Funded by Student Activity Fees
Found with the skeletons near Waco were a number of items believed to be burial artifacts intended to prepare these prehistoric inhabitants for their "life in the next world." Fox said.
"THEY ARE the only ice age burial remains found in the Western Hemisphere with a wide array of burial goods," he said.
DALLAS — The skeletal remains of an ice age man and child found in a cave near Waco, Texas, could provide science with its first systematic view of man's ideological or religious patterns during this period, a Baylor University professor said yesterday.
THE FINDING, said John Fox, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Baylor University, could be the oldest human remains ever discovered in Texas and among the oldest in the Western Hemisphere.
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