Joseph and Alper dive into one of the most unsettling sexual assault decisions to come out of the Supreme Court of Canada in years: R. v. Rioux, 2025 SCC 34, released the very day they hit record. Still hot off the printer, the judgment sends Joseph’s blood pressure through the roof as he and Alper give their raw, first reaction to a 5–4 split decision that effectively rewrites how courts treat consent, capacity, blackouts, and memory loss in sexual assault trials.
They walk through the core facts, then zero in on the majority’s treatment of blackout and memory loss as circumstantial evidence of incapacity, and the idea that a complainant’s beliefs and assumptions about how they “would have acted” can stand in for an actual memory of events. Along the way, they unpack the difference between actus reus and mens rea, explain why the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence is being stretched to absurdity, and highlight how this reasoning risks turning ordinary adult sexual behaviour especially where alcohol is involved into a legal minefield.
From Vegas blackout marriages to the realities of human behaviour after a few drinks, Joseph and Alper argue this ruling is “ripe for abuse” and dangerously divorced from common sense. With plenty of dark humour, legal nuance, and a few F-bombs, they lay the groundwork for a much deeper doctrinal analysis in Part Two of this “Consent Trilogy.” If you care about due process, evidentiary standards, and the future of sexual assault law in Canada, this is a must-listen.
