Commonwealth Vs Berkowitz Case Study

Commonwealth v. Berkowitz (1992)

Facts:

At East Stroudsburg State University, Robert Berkowitz, age 20, and the victim, age 19, were both college sophomores in the Spring of 1988. Respectively, they had mutual friends and acquaintances. Nevertheless, April 19th of that year, the victim went to Berkowitz dormitory room. What transpired between the two, is the subject of the instant appeal. On september 14th 1988, during a one-day jury trial, while being examined by the Commonwealth, the victim stated that, on April 19,88 around 2:00pm, after attending two morning classes, she returned to her dormitory room, where drank a martini to loosen up a little bit, before going to meet her boyfriend, with whom she had argued the night before. Roughly, 10 minutes later she walked to her boyfriend’s dormitory lounge to meet him, but he did not arrive yet. As such, seeing that she had nothing else to do while waiting for her boyfriend, the victim walked up to Berkowitz room to look for Earl Hassel, the defendant’s roomate. After knocking for several minutes, the victim wrote a letter which proclaimed, “Hi Earl, I’m drunk. That’s not why I came to see you. I haven’t seen you in awhile. I’ll talk to you later,” and

Court’s Opinion: The crime of rape is defined as follows: § 3121. Rape A person commits a felony of the first degree when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person not one’s spouse: (1) by forcible compulsion; (2) by threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by a person of reasonable resolution; (3) who is unconscious; or (4) who is so mentally deranged or deficient that such person is incapable of consent. The victim of a rape need not resist.

The force necessary to support a conviction of rape need only be such as to establish lack of consent and to induce the victim to submit without additional resistance. The degree of force required to constitute rape is relative and depends on the facts and particular circumstance of the