Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday signed a measure aimed at shoring up sexual assault laws so that charges can be brought in cases where alleged victims became too intoxicated on their own to consent to sexual activity.
“It doesn’t matter whether you had a beer, or a shot, or five, that’s your choice. But the assault was not,” Pritzker said during a news conference at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “And we will no longer tolerate a justice system that confuses the two.”
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Illinois law previously stated that if no other means of force or threat are used, an alleged victim impaired by alcohol or drugs was deemed unable to give consent only when the alleged attacker administered a substance “causing the victim to become unconscious of the nature of the act and this condition was known.”
The legislation was unanimously passed by the General Assembly this spring after legislators heard testimony from Kaylyn Ahn, a Des Plaines teen said who she had been drinking before being sexually assaulted last year.
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Ahn, a student at Northwestern University, said she waited several months before filing a police report in Skokie, only to be turned away because she was voluntarily intoxicated during the incident and, therefore, a police sergeant told her the case would be hard to prosecute.
“When I asked him if there were any other legal options to pursue, he said, ‘the only thing you can do now is just try to not let it happen again and move on,’” Ahn said at a news conference earlier this year. “This is my defiant refusal to do so.”
It’s rare for sexual assault cases, especially those like Ahn’s, to be prosecuted in the courts. For example, 80% to 90% of “sexual harm” reports made to the Chicago Police Department from 2010 to 2019 did not result in an arrest, according to a report from the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation.
The new law clarifies that criminal charges can be brought regardless of how the alleged victim became intoxicated or impaired, whether by alcohol or drugs.
Also Thursday, Pritzker signed a measure that doubles to 180 days the time sexual assault victims have to access treatment, allowing victims to also have access to a medical forensic examiner and other medical staff.
The law also allows for the treatment to not show up on a health insurance bill, a provision that Pritzker said is designed to help victims whose family members aren’t supportive or who may have committed the crime.
The bill signing comes about two weeks after Pritzker announced that the Illinois State Police no longer has any DNA evidence from rape cases that has not been tested within six months, a significant improvement from a backlog that existed for years.
Under a 2010 state law, forensic evidence in sexual assaults is required to be tested within 180 days if the state police has “sufficient staffing and resources.” The state hasn’t been able to fully comply with that statute until now, according to the governor’s office.
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The state police will be opening new crime labs in Joliet and Decatur, and Pritzker has pledged to add more troopers and forensic scientists to the department.
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
