In a significant legal development, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan delivered a scathing decision on Wednesday, denying former President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial in the civil lawsuit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll. The lawsuit involved allegations of sexual assault made by Carroll against Trump, and the jury’s initial decision resulted in a $5 million damages award in favor of Carroll.
Judge Kaplan’s ruling highlighted that the jury’s determination of Trump’s conduct as falling under the legal classification of sexual abuse, rather than the more commonly understood term “rape,” was a crucial point of contention. The narrow interpretation of the term “rape” within the New York Penal Law played a pivotal role in the jury’s verdict. According to the state law, “rape” refers exclusively to vaginal penetration by a penis in criminal prosecutions. Thus, the jury found that Trump’s actions did not strictly meet this specific legal definition of rape, leading them to classify the conduct as “sexual abuse” instead.
Judge Kaplan, in his detailed analysis on pages 3 to 5 of the ruling, emphasized that while the New York Penal Law’s definition of rape is limited, it does not undermine the fact that the jury unequivocally found Trump’s actions to align with the common understanding of the term “rape.” The evidence presented during the trial made it abundantly clear that Trump engaged in forcible, unconsented-to penetration of Carroll’s bodily orifices by means other than vaginal penetration. While this might not have met the legal threshold for “rape” under New York law, the jury firmly concluded that Trump had committed an act that aligns with the general understanding of the term.
The distinction between “rape” and “sexual abuse” became significant in determining the compensatory damages awarded to Carroll by the jury. Trump contended that the $2 million awarded for Carroll’s sexual assault claim was excessive, primarily because the jury had not found him guilty of “rape” as defined by New York law. He argued that the award might have been based on behavior like “groping of [Ms. Carroll’s] breasts through clothing or similar conduct,” which he considered far less severe than rape.
The jury’s unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had “raped” her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law – a section that provides that the label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”
As is shown in the following notes, the definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of “rape” in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere.
The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.
So why does this matter? It matters because Mr. Trump now contends that the jury’s $2 million compensatory damages award for Ms. Carroll’s sexual assault claim was excessive because the jury concluded that he had not “raped” Ms. Carroll. Its verdict, he says, could have been based upon no more than “groping of [Ms. Carroll’s] breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape.” And while Mr. Trump is right that a $2 million award for such groping alone could well be regarded as excessive, that undermines rather than supports his argument. His argument is entirely unpersuasive.
