State v. Elton, 18151
| Decision Date | 10 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 18151,18151 |
| Citation | 657 P.2d 1261 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Don A. ELTON, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Kent O. Willis, Provo, for defendant and appellant.
David L. Wilkinson, Salt Lake City, for plaintiff and respondent.
The defendant, 19, had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old female, not his wife, and was found guilty by a jury of violating U.C.A., 1953, 76-5-401. 1 The offense is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. The trial court spared defendant the prison term, conditioned on a probationary completion of a half-way house program.
Defendant urges three points on appeal to the effect that (1) the offense charged requires a specific criminal intent, (2) his mistake in appraising the girl's age constitutes a defense to the charge, and (3) failure to allow evidence as to defendant's "belief" or "mistake" as to the girl's age, together with failure to instruct thereon, was error.
Defendant concedes that Utah courts, as elsewhere, traditionally have considered and approved sanctions for offenses like that charged here, connoting a "strict liability" that is implicit in the offense itself, whether those words are included in the legislation defining the offense or not. Such offenses have been considered to be punishable without the necessity of pleading or proving specific intent. Since they are malum prohibitum crimes, criminal responsibility attaches whenever the prohibited act is fully accomplished.
The defendant's whole thesis is to the effect that it would be ludicrous if the legislature intended that one be guilty of a felony if the sex act occurred shortly before a girl's sixteenth birthday, but guilty only of a misdemeanor if it happened a few minutes after that magic date. Irrespective of such hypothetics, defendant contends that he should be excused from criminal liability if he "believed" or was "mistaken" as to the girl's age.
Courts generally have not gone along with any of defendant's concepts as to what the law should be, leaving that determination to the legislature. Courts have taken the position that a statute calling for the protection of young women below a specific age is necessary and contributive to the common welfare. In rare instances, where one may not have intended to do violence because of belief or mistake, the law wisely has provided a mitigating process. This mitigating and ameliorating process has been employed in this very case in the sentencing phase, where the trial court placed the defendant on probation rather than impose a prison term.
The defendant cites but one case supporting his contention that his own subjective belief that the girl was 16 or over, should constitute a defense to the statutory charge. 2 This case has been rejected in numerous other jurisdictions. We agree in such rejection and quote with approval language found in the...
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Johnson v. State
...the wrong numbers is immaterial." Id. 803 P.2d at 251; State v. Elton, 680 P.2d 727 (Utah 1984), vacating upon reconsideration 657 P.2d 1261(Utah 1982), in which the Utah Supreme Court reversed itself two years later on the issue, and declared that mistake of fact with regard to the age of ......
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People v. Cash
...an equal protection challenge, California's statutory rape law which exclusively punished male perpetrators.14 See State v. Elton, 657 P.2d 1261, 1262 (Utah, 1982). For example, some mitigating factors which a trial judge may take into consideration in imposing a sentence are the relative a......
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State v. Navarrete
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State v. Elton
...Lake City, for plaintiff and respondent. STEWART, Justice: We have previously issued a per curiam opinion in this case, now published at 657 P.2d 1261. That opinion concluded that reasonable mistake of age could not be raised as a defense in a prosecution for unlawful sexual intercourse as ......