An Isreali judge has sentenced an Arab man to jail for pretending he was a Jew before having sex with a woman he met on the street. Read the full story here.
I am no criminal lawyer, and no expert in Isreali law, but I wonder how this will play out in a Canadian court. Some questions come to mind:
1. Will a Canadian court convict if it was established that the lie was determinative of the complainant's consent? (h/t to Howie for this question)
2. Putting legal doctrine aside, should deceptive statements trigger culpability for the crime of rape? To put this in stark terms - can one lie to get another to have sex with them?
3. Did the court conflate two different episodes of consent - consent to engage in a relationship with a Jewish man, and consent to the act of sex?
4. Is there something here that calls for a criminal law version of the remoteness doctrine in tort law? Is the consent based on the deceptive statement too remote to trigger culpability based on the act of sex, which she obviously consented to?
