The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for a man convicted of raping a woman who was drunk. The justices ruled that the state's definition of "mentally incapacitated" does not include voluntarily inebriated victims.
Hennepin County prosecutors say that in May of 2017, Francois Khalil encountered a woman outside a Dinkytown bar who’d just consumed five shots of vodka and a prescription narcotic. Khalil invited her and a friend to a party.
Court documents say Khalil and two other men drove them to a house in Minneapolis, where there was no party. The woman, identified only by her initials, testified that she blacked out on the couch and later woke up to find Khalil raping her.
In 2019, a jury in Hennepin County convicted Khalil of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a victim who was impaired.
But Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned his conviction, ruling that the state’s legal definition of “mentally incapacitated” only applies if a victim was given drugs or alcohol against their will — not if they consumed the substances voluntarily.
Khalil’s attorney Will Walker said the justices agreed with his contention that the trial judge gave incorrect instructions to the jury.