Case Title: State v. Searles

Citation: 

Docket Number: 91-038

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1992-12-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P.
 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
 Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
 Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in
 order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.

                                 No. 91-038

 State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                              On Appeal from
      v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                              Unit No. 3, Washington Circuit

 Eric R. Searles                              December Term, 1992


 Joseph J. Wolchik, J.

 Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, and David Tartter, Assistant Attorney
   General, Montpelier, for plaintiff-appellee

 Charles Martin and Helene Quinn, Law Clerk (On the Brief), of Martin &
   Paolini and Phyllis Boltax, Barre, for defendant-appellant


 PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.


      MORSE, J.   Defendant Eric Searles, following a jury trial, appeals his
 conviction under 13 V.S.A. { 3252(a)(3) for sexual assault of a fourteen-
 year-old female.  Defendant contests his conviction on three grounds.  He
 claims the court erred by (1) refusing to instruct the jury that knowledge
 of the victim's age was an element of the offense, or, if not an element,
 that a reasonable mistake about the victim's age was a defense to the
 crime; (2) admitting evidence of the use of force when force was not an
 element of the crime; and (3) denying a mistrial when media coverage of the
 trial was read by some jurors.  We affirm.
      In the evening of August 6, 1989, defendant, accompanied by two male
 friends, stopped in Barre and met the complainant, a female ten days shy of
 her fifteenth birthday.  Although she knew none of the three, complainant
 joined them and indicated, when asked, the whereabouts of a party.  Beer was
 purchased, and, unable to find the party, the group drove around making
 several stops.  Eventually, defendant drove to Marshfield Dam with one of
 his friends and complainant.  There, the men forced her to have sexual
 intercourse with them.  She was then driven to the home of her friends in
 Randolph.  During the ride, she wrote the car's license number on her arm
 with a pen found on the dashboard.  The next morning, complainant reported
 the incident to the police.
                                     I.
      13 V.S.A. { 3252(a)(3) defines sexual assault of a minor as "a sexual
 act with another person and . . . [t]he other person is under the age of 16,
 except where the persons are married to each other and the sexual act is
 consensual."  Defendant argues that knowledge that the "other person is
 under the age of 16" is an element of the offense.
      Although defendant captions his first argument with a heading that
 states that his "constitutional right to due process" was violated by
 failure of the jury to consider the reasonableness of his knowledge of the
 victim's age, he does not brief either federal or state constitutional law.
 Rather, defendant analogizes the knowledge requirement for this offense to
 cases where we implied a mental element even though the statute was silent.
 See State v. Day, 150 Vt. 119, 122,