Title: Winters v. State

State: delaware

Issuer: Delaware Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE
LARRY WINTERS,
 
)
)
No. 181, 2004
Defendant Below,
)
Appellant,
)
Court Below: Superior Court
)
of the State of Delaware
)
in and for New Castle County
)
STATE OF DELAWARE,
)
)
Plaintiff Below,
)
Appellee.
)
Submitted:  August 25, 2004
Decided:  September 8, 2004
Before HOLLAND, BERGER and RIDGELY, Justices.
ORDER
This 8th day of September, 2004, on consideration of the parties’ briefs, it
appears to the Court that:
1.  Larry Winters appeals his conviction of Sexual Solicitation of a Child.  He
argues that the statute delineating this crime is unconstitutional under First
Amendment principles regulating obscenity because it lacks a state-of-mind
requirement regarding age.  In the alternative, he argues that if it is constitutional, the
trial judge erred in failing to instruct the jury that the State must prove his knowledge
of the victim’s age.  We find no constitutional infirmity with the statute and no error
by the trial judge in instructing the jury.  Accordingly, we affirm.
2.  In July 2003, Winters approached the victim (“C.W.”), as she was walking
on a Wilmington street.  After a brief conversation, he forced her into his vehicle.  He
drove to a nearby park where he unsuccessfully propositioned her.  A police officer
1
Dutton v. State, 452 A.2d  127, 146 (Del. 1982). 
2
Wainwright v. State, 504 A.2d  1096, 1100 (Del. 1986).  Winters concedes that he
failed to raise his constitutional claim at trial.
3
Id.
4
11 Del. C. § 1112A(a)(1).  
5
11 Del. C. § 762(a). 
6
Pritchard v. State, 2004 Del. LEXIS 61 (holding Section 762 does not deprive
criminal defendants of due process rights).
2
in the area noticed them in the parked car, and, he inquired about their ages.  Winters
was over 50 and she was 15.  The officer arrested Winters.   A jury convicted  Winters
of Sexual Solicitation of a Child and he was sentenced to serve five years at Level 5,
suspended after one year for four years at Level 3 probation.  Winters appeals this
conviction citing plain error.
3.  Under the plain error standard of review,  the defect complained of must be
so “prejudicial to substantial rights” that it “jeopardize[s] the fairness and integrity of
the trial process.”1  An error is “plain” if it is “so prejudicial to substantial rights as to
jeopardize the fairness and integrity of the trial process.”2  Claims of error implicating
constitutional rights of a defendant are reviewable notwithstanding their nonassertion
at trial.3
4.  Winters contests the constitutionality of the Sexual Solicitation statute and
its related age-based provisions.  In Delaware, it is a crime to intentionally or
knowingly “solicit[] . . . any child who has not yet reached his or her sixteenth
birthday to engage in a prohibited sexual act.”4  A defendant’s mistake as to the
victim’s age is no defense.5  Denying this defense constitutes a “proper exercise of
Delaware's police power to protect children from sexual predators.”6
7
See  11 Del. C.  § 454 (directing that to constitute a defense, statute in issue must
expressly provide knowledge of victim’s age as an element of the offense).
8
513 U.S. 64 (1994).
9
513 U.S. at 72 n.2 (“[W]e do not think the common-law treatment of sex offenses
militates against our construction of the present statute.”); see also United States v. Morissette, 342
U.S. 246, 251 n.8 (1952) (“Exceptions [to the presumption of mens rea] came to include sex
offenses, such as rape, in which the victim's actual age was determinative despite defendant's
reasonable belief that the [victim] had reached [the] age of consent.”).
10
See Pritchard, 2004 Del. LEXIS 61.
3
5.  Winters concedes that the statute defining the offense in this case has no
attendant state-of-mind requirement concerning age of the victim.7  Instead, he argues
that the absence of this state of mind requirement rends the statute unconstitutional
under the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. X-Citement
Video.8  According to Winters, either the statute is unconstitutional because it lacks
a state-of-mind requirement regarding age, or it is constitutional pursuant to X-
Citement Video, and the trial judge erred in failing to instruct the jury that the
prosecution must prove his knowledge of C.W.’s age.
6.  Winters’s reliance on X-Citement Video is misplaced.  That case involved
a federal criminal statute aimed at curbing the interstate shipment of obscene materials
depicting minors.  In concluding that the First Amendment requires those prosecuted
under the statute have knowledge that the materials contain images of minors, the
Supreme Court expressly distinguished its holding in that case from the common-law
treatment of sex offenses.9  The First Amendment implications in X-Citement Video
concerning visual representations are simply inapplicable here.  The jury was
instructed in conformity with 11 Del. C. § 762(a) and this Court has previously upheld
the constitutionality of this statute.10
 
 NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that the judgment of the Superior
4
Court is AFFIRMED.
BY THE COURT:
/s/Henry duPont Ridgely
Justice