To the Editor:
“You Can’t Shrug Off Rape,” by Emily Bazelton (June 12), notes that there are efforts to change the general rule in criminal law that “recklessness resulting from intoxication does not lessen culpability.”
Any such change must be rigorously resisted. If a person chooses to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana or use any other mind-altering drug, he or she has made a conscious decision and should be held accountable for any untoward results of that choice.
Anyone using such substances knows that he or she will be less likely to act responsibly and sensibly. Being drunk or high is no more of an excuse for harming someone than anger or hatred are.
At the same time, being impaired—as the woman in the Stanford rape case was—is never an abrogation of the right to be left alone and unharmed.
MICHAEL E. MAKOVER
Great Neck, N.Y.
The writer is a professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine.
Note from KBJ: There isn't a single thing in this letter that has to do with medicine, so why did the New York Times include the writer's occupation? It's mind-boggling. The letter writer has every right to express his opinion about what the law should be, but his medical expertise has no bearing on that matter.
Note 2 from KBJ: I put the letter writer's evaluative terms in boldface.
