Filing an appeal is a right, one that only a single one of the 51 men convicted of rape or sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot chose to exercise. Filing an appeal is also a risk, as Husamettin Dogan learned the hard way on Thursday, October 9: He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the appeals court in Nîmes, an increase of one year compared to his sentence in the first trial.

The reasoning for this new verdict was not available by Thursday evening. But from 2024 to 2025, from the global shock of the judgment in Avignon to its minor aftershock in Nîmes, for both the jurors at the appeal trial and the professional judges at the first trial, for one defendant or for 51, the justice system relied on the same principle, as Antoine Camus, lawyer for Gisèle Pelicot, summed up in a single sentence during his arguments: "To force a sexual act on a body that is clearly unable to consent is rape."

Gisèle Pelicot was not in a position to consent. Dogan claimed he did not know. The videos filmed by Dominique Pelicot proved otherwise. It was rape. "There is no 'but' that stands," Camus argued again. "'Yes, but her husband told me.' 'Yes, but I was at his house.' 'Yes, but I couldn't have known.' 'Yes, but I had received videos of his wife.'" Yes, but no.

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