Bill named for UT Austin student passes, closes sexual assault loophole
Content Warning: This article discusses sexual assault. Please return to the homepage if you are not comfortable with the topic. If you are in distress and need to speak with someone, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas will close a loophole in its sexual assault laws after the Texas Senate passed House Bill 3073 on Wednesday, which makes it a crime in Texas to have sex with a person who is voluntarily intoxicated.
Previously, in order to convict someone for a sexual assault, prosecutors had to prove that a defendant had “intentionally impaired the other person’s power to appraise or control the other person’s conduct by administering any substance without the other person’s knowledge.“
For survivors like bill namesake Summer Willis, this wording prevented her from pressing charges.
The new Texas’ Penal code language will instead read: “A sexual assault … is without the consent of the other person if the actor knows that the other person is intoxicated or impaired by any substance to the extent that the other person is incapable of consenting”
The sexual assault statutes would now cite an already enrolled definition of consent — “assent in fact, whether express or apparent.”
The bill came out of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Sexual Assault Survivors Task Force and supporters said that it had his support. Unless Abbott issues a surprise veto, the bill goes into law on Sept. 1.
HB 3073 narrowly avoided multiple deadlines near the end of the session. Willis and other organizers told KXAN that they’ve been pushing for the change for over 10 years.
The delayed start of the new law means that it will not cover assaults of intoxicated people occurring prior to September.
HB 3073 was authored by Reps. Donna Howard, D-Austin; Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway; Ann Johnson, D-Houston; David Cook, R-Mansfield; and Nichole Collier, D-Fort Worth. Its Senate sponsor was Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney.
