A 140-year-old law which states that rape is only to be considered if a person is married is outdated and needs to be changed, says California Attorney General Kamala Harris. The loophole came to light when a Los Angeles court overturned a three-year-old rape conviction. In a 2009 case, a perpetrator impersonated his friend and had sex with the friend’s girlfriend. The old law states that if a person impersonates someone, that person is guilty of rape only if the victim is married and the person impersonated her husband. “This law is arcane and I will work with the Legislature to fix it,” said Harris, the first Indian-American and a woman to have become the Attorney General of California. “The evidence is clear that this case involved a nonconsensual assault that fits within the general understanding of what constitutes rape,” she said. DNA reports that despite outrage over the court ruling, there is resistance to change the old law.
