Rape trial defense: 'She didn't affirmatively say no.' Defendant: She 'was like a dead body.'

As high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, are tried for raping a 16-year-old girl who was so drunk they had to carry her from party to party as they continued raping her over a period of hours, their defense is that she consented. So drunk that at one point she was carried by her arms and legs, nonetheless, the defense asserts that she consented, because "She didn't affirmatively say no" even though she was at some moments during the evening sober enough to be able to speak.

The girl's text messages as she learned what had happened (something she had to learn later because she was too impaired to remember what had been done to her) are a powerful rebuttal to that ridiculous claim:

'I wasn't being a slut. They were taking advantage of me,' stated one text message sent from the girl's phone, according to Ms. Gibb's testimony.

To a friend of Mr. Mays, the girl wrote in another text message: 'Who was there who did that to me?' She added, 'You couldn't have told them to stop or anything?'

'I hate my life,' the girl also texted, stating at another point: 'Oh my God, please tell me this isn't' true.

Texts from one of the defendants actually provide another strong rebuttal to the defense attorney's claim, as we'll see below the fold. Because there's no way we're having a real conversation about consent when it comes to someone described as these texts describe the girl.