Opinion ID: 1834259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutionality of Denying the Use of the Mistake-of-Age Defense.

Text: Gilmour has two constitutional arguments regarding the denial of the mistake-of-age defense. His first constitutional argument is that it serves to deny him equal protection of the law. The second argument is that the denial of the defense chills his First Amendment rights. For the equal protection argument, Gilmour compares two classes of accused people: those people charged under Iowa Code section 728.2 (dissemination and exhibition of obscene material to minors), and those people charged under Iowa Code section 728.12(1) (sexual exploitation of a minor). Gilmour contends that both of these classes of people are similarly situated since they are both purveyors of sexually explicit material. Gilmour claims that the difference is that those charged under section 728.2 are provided with a statutory defense for mistake of age under Iowa Code section 728.10, while those charged under section 728.12(1) are not. He contends that there is no rational basis for treating these groups of people differently. Gilmour also claims that the denial of the defense based on mistake of fact would chill his First Amendment rights. For this argument, Gilmour relies on United States v. United States District Court, 858 F.2d 534 (9th Cir.1988), which involved a filmmaker who made a movie featuring a sixteen-year-old actress participating in sexually explicit conduct. The court stated that, to avoid chilling First Amendment rights, defendants must be given the opportunity to use the defense of mistake of age. Id. at 540-41. The State argues that the offenses of dissemination and exhibition of obscene material to minors under section 728.2 and sexual exploitation of a minor under section 728.12(1) are markedly different with respect to the nature of the criminal activity. Consequently, the State urges, a rational basis exists for treating those accused of these different offenses in a different manner. We find the State's argument to be persuasive. Persons in dissimilar situations do not have to be treated in the same manner in order to satisfy the Equal Protection Clause. Koch v. Kostichek, 409 N.W.2d 680, 683 (Iowa 1987); Stracke v. City of Council Bluffs, 341 N.W.2d 731, 734 (Iowa 1983). We also reject Gilmour's constitutional challenge to section 728.12(1) based on the First Amendment. In the federal case on which he relies, the court believed that a statute imposing strict criminal liability for filming a minor in a sexually explicit manner would have a chilling effect on the hiring of any young appearing persons for this type of film even though those persons were of legal age. We are not confident that this conclusion is required by either the text or spirit of the First Amendment. We need not decide that point, however, because we are able to distinguish the United States District Court case as it may be applicable here. The federal statute interpreted in United States District Court, 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), was a prohibition against producing films depicting explicit sex by minors to be distributed in interstate commerce or the mails. As such, the prohibition might conceivably be viewed as pertaining to the communication of the contents of the film. In sharp contrast, the conduct prohibited in section 728.12(1) is the enticing of minors to engage in a prohibited sex act or simulate a prohibited sex act for purposes of photographing the act. The prohibition is thus not aimed at distribution of the material as a communication or expression of ideas. In light of the great latitude extended to states in regulating child pornography by New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 102 S.Ct. 3348, 73 L.Ed.2d 1113 (1982), we do not believe that the prohibition offends against expression protected by the First Amendment. The Court in Ferber spoke to the matter of First Amendment protections and found them to be very limited in the child pornography area. Id. at 756-57, 102 S.Ct. at 3354, 73 L.Ed.2d at 1122-23.