http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/sports/basketball/derrick-rose-rape-trial.html 2016-10-19 04:04:53 Jury Hears Closing Arguments in Derrick Rose Case A woman who has sued Rose and two others is not just seeking a payday, her lawyer said. === LOS ANGELES — The lawyer for a woman whose lawsuit alleges that the N.B.A. star The lawyer, Waukeen McCoy, said in his closing argument on Tuesday that the woman was just seeking accountability for Rose, and he did not mention a specific amount of money. McCoy called Rose, who was acquired by the Closing arguments by the defendants’ lawyers were continuing late Tuesday. No one has disputed that Rose and his friends had sex with the woman in her apartment on Aug. 27, 2013. The question is whether she gave her consent — as the men claim — or whether she was too intoxicated to do so — as she insists. Months before Rose took the stand to defend himself, he was asked in a deposition if he understood the word “consent.” “No. But can you tell me?” he asked in June. Rose came to court last week with a much better grasp of the word, which is central to the civil case, though his interpretation of the concept could prove costly. The woman is seeking more than $21 million. There is no commonly accepted definition for consent, which is at the heart of a “patchwork quilt” of evolving laws on rape and sexual assault that in some cases require an affirmative agreement before sex, the lawyer Rebecca O’Connor said. “It is murky, and I think that’s where we’re seeing a lot states try to clear the weeds, if you will, and take this on and make it clear,” said O’Connor, a vice president at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. “It’s so complicated we can never just say it’s black and white.” Rape was once defined as intercourse with force against a woman’s will, said Matt Lyon, a law professor at Lincoln Memorial University. Reform efforts in some states led to rape being defined more by the nonconsent of the victim than the use of force. States such as California have gone further in deciding that consent can be withdrawn during sex and that a victim can be too incapacitated to agree. “One of the big criticisms against the modernization is the ‘he said, she said,’” Lyon said. “It’s so easy when it’s clear there was force used, but here the woman may say it was rape, though there’s no physical evidence of force or that it was done against her will.” That is the situation in the Rose case, in which the woman said she blacked out and felt drugged. The woman said she went home from Rose’s place, vomited and woke up around 3 a.m. to find Rose and the two other defendants, Ryan Allen and Randall Hampton, having sex with her against her will. Rose may have been tripped up by the word “consent” in his videotaped deposition, but he tried to recover at trial by defining it as both parties being in agreement. He also connected dots he felt outlined consent, including text messages that the woman sent him 17 hours earlier saying he caused her to be sexually aroused. Rose testified that he assumed consent based on their sexual history, the fact that she had never denied him and because of sexual acts she initiated with him and his friends at the Beverly Hills house earlier in the night. He and his friends all said that the woman seemed sober and that she willingly participated.