A bipartisan bill to close a loophole in Michigan’s marital rape law cleared the state House on Wednesday, albeit with several no-votes from GOP “Freedom Caucus” members.
House Bill 4202, sponsored by state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia), would do away with a provision that can protect a person from prosecution if they drugged and raped their spouse. It was adopted by the House with a vote of 103-5.
Only state Reps. Steve Carra (R-Three Rivers), James DeSana (R-Carleton), Neil Friske (R-Petoskey), Matt Maddock (R-Milford) and Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) voted against the bill.
In a tweet, Pohutsky called the five no-votes “extremely disturbing.”
HB 4202, my bill to close a loophole in Michigan’s marital rape law, passed the House today. Despite five extremely disturbing no votes, I’m grateful for this progress and looking forward to closing this loophole once and for all. pic.twitter.com/QBioWOZj1a
— Laurie Pohutsky (@lpohutsky19) April 19, 2023
Pohutsky’s bill now awaits consideration in the Senate.
In a Facebook post Thursday, Friske explained that he voted no because he does not want drunk or intoxicated spouses to be able to press charges on their partner “sometime in the future after a fight/disagreement.”
“This fake, do-nothing bill was used as a publicity stunt by the Democrats,” Friske wrote, claiming that Democratic lawmakers have used “their journalist attack dogs” to intimidate Republicans into voting yes.
Pohutsky introduced an earlier version of the bill in 2021, which ultimately did not clear the full GOP-led Legislature despite passing in the House with unanimous support. It stalled in a Senate committee after being referred there last summer.
Although Michigan has outlawed marital rape outright for decades, with all 50 states explicitly banning it by the early 1990s, loopholes like the one addressed in Pohutsky’s bill still exist across the country.
Section 520l of the state’s 1931 penal code currently states: “A person may be charged and convicted under sections 520b to 520g even though the victim is his or her legal spouse. However, a person may not be charged or convicted solely because his or her legal spouse is under the age of 16 , or mentally incapable, or mentally incapacitated.”
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HB 4202 strikes “mentally incapacitated” from the list of exceptions. Under Michigan law, the phrase means that the person “is rendered temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling his or her conduct due to the influence of a narcotic, anesthetic, or other substance administered to that person without his or her consent or due to any other act committed upon that person without his or her consent.”
Pohutsky told the Advance on Thursday that more work is needed in order to fully close other loopholes that still exist. That includes a bill to eliminate child marriage, which the Senate is working on, and another, more complex bill that requires a definition change elsewhere in statute.
The latter bill addressing the phrase “mentally incapable” will “[take] some more work than [HB] 4202 to avoid unintended consequences,” Pohutsky said.
authored by Laina G. Stebbins
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