United States v. Aaron Shell

North Carolina’s, second-degree rape statute punishes predatory acts committed against society’s most vulnerable individuals. To violate the contested portion of this statute, one must have taken advantage of a mentally or physically defenseless person to engage in sexual intercourse — all the while knowing of the victim’s impaired condition. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14 — 27.3(a)(2). This law protects people considered incapable of volitional acts from such callous conduct.

The majority, however, asks us to accept a disquieting proposition: that a defendant who “engages in vaginal intercourse with…