Also known as: ravishments · ravish · ravishes · ravished · ravishing · rape · abduction
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Forcible sexual intercourse constituting the common-law crime of rape.
Roberto Reyes and an accomplice enter Regina Robinson's home to steal valuables. Reyes forces Robinson into sexual intercourse at knifepoint while the accomplice stands watch. When Robinson resists, Reyes strikes her fatally. The killing occurs during the rape, so the presumption of extreme indifference applies and the homicide is murder.
Rebecca Ross is cornered in her apartment stairwell by Ryan Roberts, who threatens immediate sexual assault. Ross reasonably believes she faces ravishment that cannot be safely avoided. She draws a licensed firearm and shoots Roberts once in the chest. The threat of ravishment supplies the reasonable belief of serious harm required for the privilege of deadly force in self-defense.
Ruby Rivera is convicted of raping an adult woman who survives the attack. The state seeks capital punishment. Because the victim did not die, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death sentence as disproportionate to the offense of rape.
Raymond Ramos compels Regina Robinson to submit to sexual intercourse by threatening imminent serious bodily injury with a knife. Robinson is not his wife and does not consent. The use of force meets the statutory requirement for rape under the Model Penal Code definition.
Roberto Reyes is convicted of raping a child. The crime neither intended nor resulted in the child's death. The Eighth Amendment forbids imposition of the death penalty because capital punishment is disproportionate for this non-homicide offense.
Ruby Rivera is identified in a newspaper article as the victim of a rape committed by Ryan Roberts. The article uses her name obtained from public court records after the trial. Rivera asserts a privacy claim against the publisher for publishing the name without consent.
In August 1982, respondent Michael Hardwick was charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of respondent's home. After a preliminary hearing, the District Attorney decided not to present the matter to the grand jury unless further evidence developed. Hardwick, who identified as a practicing homosexual, then brought suit in the Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. He asserted that the Georgia sodomy statute, as administered by the defendants, placed him in imminent danger of arrest. The District Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, relying on Doe v. Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Richmond, which the Supreme Court had summarily affirmed. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed. The appellate court held that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights because his homosexual activity is a private and intimate association beyond the reach of state regulation by reason of the Ninth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It remanded for trial. John and Mary Doe were also plaintiffs in the action. They alleged that they wished to engage in sexual activity proscribed by the statute in the privacy of their home and that they had been chilled and deterred from engaging in such activity by both the existence of the statute and Hardwick's arrest. The District Court held that because they had neither sustained, nor were in immediate danger of sustaining, any direct injury from the enforcement of the statute, they did not have proper standing to maintain the action. The Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal. The Georgia statute at issue, Ga. Code Ann. § 16-6-2, provides that a person commits the offense of sodomy when he performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another. A person convicted shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than twenty years. Because other Courts of Appeals had arrived at judgments contrary to that of the Eleventh Circuit, the Supreme Court granted the Attorney General's petition for certiorari questioning the holding that the sodomy statute violates the fundamental rights of homosexuals.
View caseRavishment supplies the reasonable belief of death or serious bodily harm that permits an actor to use deadly force in self-defense when the threat can be prevented only by immediate action. The Restatement recognizes this peril alongside threats of death or serious injury.
Yes. Under the Model Penal Code, recklessness and extreme indifference to human life are presumed when the actor commits or attempts rape, so a resulting death constitutes murder.
No. The Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment for the rape of an adult woman when the victim survives, because the penalty is disproportionate to the offense.
No. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for rape of a child when the crime neither intended nor caused the child's death.