Statutory Rape - Romeo and Juliet Laws

Romeo and Juliet Laws

Often, teenage couples engage in sexual conduct as part of an intimate relationship. This may start to occur before either participant has reached the age of consent, or after one has but the other has not. In most jurisdictions, the person who has reached the age of consent would be guilty of the statutory rape provision. In some jurisdictions (such as California), if two minors have sex with each other, they are both guilty of engaging in unlawful sex with the other person. Most jurisdictions, as previously stated, consider the act itself to be prima facie evidence of guilt, as any consent between partners, even if freely given, does not meet the standard of law, as it is given by a person the law has defined as being incapable of giving consent. Thus the accused individual often has no defense.

These aspects have often been considered unjust, leading to the passage of so-called Romeo and Juliet laws, which serve to reduce or eliminate the penalty of the crime in cases where the couple's age difference is minor and the sexual contact is only considered rape because of the lack of legally recognized consent. Such laws vary, but can include:

• Rephrasing the definition of the offense itself to completely exclude situations where the difference in age is less than a specific time period.
• Providing an affirmative defense to statutory rape based on the small difference in the participants' ages, or on evidence of a pre-existing sexual relationship between the accused and the perceived victim that did not constitute statutory rape.
• Reducing the severity of the offense from a felony to a misdemeanor, which prevents loss of civil rights and reduces available penalties.
• Reducing the penalty in such cases to a fine, probation, and/or community service
• Eliminating the requirement that the convicted participant register as a sex offender, or reducing the duration of such registration from life to one, five or ten years.
• Allowing a convicted party to petition for expungement after serving any adjudged sentence.

Such laws generally apply to a couple whose ages differ by less than a specified number of years. They are, however, generally unavailable in any case where the older participant has an authoritative position over the younger regardless of relative age, such as a teacher/student, coach/player or guardian/ward relationship, or if any physical force was used or serious physical injury resulted. This is normally accomplished by making acts involving these circumstances separate crimes to which the "Romeo and Juliet" defense does not apply.

An example is Texas Penal Code, Section 22.011(e). It provides an affirmative defense to a charge of sexual assault if all of the following apply:

• the accused was not more than 3 years older than the perceived victim
• the perceived victim was older than 14 years of age at the time of the offense
• the accused was not at the time registered or required to register for life as a sex offender
• the conduct did not constitute incest
• neither the accused nor perceived victim would commit bigamy by marrying the other (in other words, neither was married to a third person)

A similar affirmative defense exists in the Texas Penal Code for the related crime of "continuous sexual abuse of a young child or children". Any defense under either law, however, does not apply to the separate crime of "improper educator/student relationship" (sexual relations between a licensed teacher and/or school employee and a student of the same school), or for "aggravated sexual assault" (the forcible rape statute of Texas law).