{"id":704,"date":"2012-04-19T14:50:50","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?p=704"},"modified":"2012-04-19T14:51:14","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:51:14","slug":"state-v-rusk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/","title":{"rendered":"State v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230 (1981)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Case Name: <\/strong>State v. Rusk
\nCitation: <\/strong>289 Md. 230 (1981)<\/p>\n

Facts: <\/strong>Rusk was convicted of second degree rape. The prosecuting witness\u2019 testimony and the defendant\u2019s testimony were quite different. The jury convicted Rusk but the conviction was reversed by the Court of Special Appeals which concluded that there was insufficient evidence of Rusk\u2019s guilt to permit the case to go to the jury.<\/p>\n

Issue: <\/strong>Whether the defendant had the requisite \u201cforce or threat of force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defendant\u2019s argument: <\/strong>The sex was consensual and Rusk did not do anything to \u201cforce\u201d the girl to have sex with him. The prosecuting witness’ testimony stating, \u201cThe way he looked;\u201d is not enough to show force.<\/p>\n

State\u2019s argument: <\/strong>The girl feared Rusk and although it may have been unreasonable, there was enough evidence (with particular focus on the actual force placed on the girl\u2019s neck) to convict the defendant. Furthermore, the jury believed the girl not Rusk and the appellate court cannot substitute its own judgment.<\/p>\n

Holding: <\/strong>Convicted reinstated. The Court of Special Appeals substituted its own view of the evidence for that of the judge and jury. (However, the CSA actually reversed on the basis that the case should not have gone to the jury<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Reasoning: <\/strong>The vast majority of jurisdictions have required that the victim\u2019s fear be reasonably grounded in order to obviate the need for either proof of actual force on the part of the assailant or physical resistance on the part of the victim.<\/p>\n

Dissent: <\/strong>A fact finder can only look to see if the victim\u2019s fear is reasonably grounded <\/strong>after the court determines that the defendant\u2019s conduct under the circumstances was reasonably calculated to give rise to a fear on her part to the extent that she was unable to resist. The actual force on the girl\u2019s neck (if it did occur) came after they were already lying naked in bed. It is hard to tell this from just seduction, she never resisted and never described what \u201cthe look\u201d was that the defendant gave her. Also, the defendant made no <\/em>response to the girl\u2019s question \u201cIf I do what you want, will you let me go without killing me?\u201d (The dissent did not seem to believe the girl’s testimony.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Case Name: State v. Rusk Citation: 289 Md. 230 (1981) Facts: Rusk was convicted of second degree rape. The prosecuting witness\u2019 testimony and the defendant\u2019s testimony were quite different. The jury convicted Rusk but the conviction was reversed by the Court of Special Appeals which concluded that there was insufficient evidence of Rusk\u2019s guilt to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “State v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230 (1981)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[146,145],"tags":[167,166],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","yoast_head":"\nState v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230 (1981) -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rusk was convicted of second degree rape. The prosecuting witness\u2019 testimony and the defendant\u2019s testimony were quite different.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"State v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230 (1981) -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rusk was convicted of second degree rape. The prosecuting witness\u2019 testimony and the defendant\u2019s testimony were quite different.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MiB Law\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-19T18:50:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-19T18:51:14+00:00\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"name\":\"MiB Law\",\"description\":\"Lawschool Notes and Outlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/\",\"name\":\"State v. Rusk, 289 Md. 230 (1981) -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-19T18:50:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-19T18:51:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\"},\"description\":\"Rusk was convicted of second degree rape. The prosecuting witness\\u2019 testimony and the defendant\\u2019s testimony were quite different.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/state-v-rusk\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#\/schema\/person\/14950d73730da8ecbd5b2d2690155373\",\"name\":\"Andrew\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/1.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7e4456f2e886e2b22adb13ba439e70ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andrew\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/miblaw\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.miblaw.com\/lawschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}