ASHE SCHOW REPORTS ON THE AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE: ‘A mess’: Law group rejects affirmative consent.

The American public was spared — for now — the possibility of being labeled rapists overnight thanks to a new definition of what is and isn’t consent.

The American Law Institute was expected to vote Tuesday during its annual meeting on adopting a draft model penal code that would radically alter the way sex crimes are handled. But due to rigorous dissent and discussion by members, the vote didn’t happen. Instead, members voted on amending the current tentative draft’s definition of consent.

Two-and-a-half hours were allotted to discuss the amendment, introduced by Washington, D.C.-based attorney Margaret Love, as well as another amendment and, some were led to believe, the draft itself. But two hours and 20 minutes in, only the Love amendment had been discussed.

The amendment set to remove “affirmative consent” language from the draft proposal. The writers of the draft had already attempted to conceal the standard by renaming it “communicated willingness,” but ALI members weren’t fooled.

“A mess,” one attorney called the entire draft, even as he supported the Love amendment. “A mess,” is how I — an outsider — would have categorized the day’s event.

Member after member stood up to express their support or opposition to the Love amendment. Most supporting the amendment noted how it moved the draft, thankfully, away from the affirmative consent standard. A female attorney from New Haven, Connecticut warned the audience that “criminal law should not be at the vanguard of social change.”

No, it shouldn’t.