Opinion ID: 2054818
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lack of Requirement of Scienter in Statute

Text: Even though the plaintiff has no privacy right to engage in consensual heterosexual intercourse with a minor under sixteen, he nonetheless argues that RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977), because it lacks the requirement of scienter, chills his right to engage in consensual heterosexual intercourse with persons older than sixteen. In other words, he argues that adults will refrain from engaging in sexual activity with partners who can legally consent, for fear that they will be committing a criminal act. This fear will force persons in the plaintiff's position to steer too wide a course at the margin where lawful activity verges on proscribed activity. Plaintiff relies on two Supreme Court cases, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952) and Smith v. State of California, 361 U.S. 147 (1959), to support his argument. In each case, the Court struck down a nonvague State law that regulated unprotected expression but incidentally discouraged protected first amendment expression. The Smith Court struck down a law that imposed strict liability for the seller of obscene books. Although obscene literature is not protected by the first amendment, the Court reasoned that the statute required the bookseller to know the contents of his entire inventory, and thus the effect of the statute was to diminish the storeowner's stock, including protected unobscene literature. In Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952), the Supreme Court struck down a State loyalty oath statute because there was no requirement that a person know that he was a member of a subversive organization. The Wieman Court concluded that the effect of this law was to stifle the flow of democratic expression. 344 U.S. 183, 191 (1952). Even though the statutes in question were not vague, the Supreme Court required an element of scienter because first amendment freedoms were affected. Plaintiff argues that the holding of Smith and Wieman must necessarily apply whenever federally guaranteed privacy rights are affected. We disagree; the Supreme Court has declared a statute invalid because a lack of scienter could conceivably affect protected rights only in cases in which first amendment rights were impinged. See Anderson v. State, 562 P.2d 351 (Alaska 1977). We are unwilling to extend the analysis in Smith and Wieman to this case. The plaintiff argues, however, that the recent Supreme Court case of Colautti v. Franklin, 99 S.Ct. 675 (1979), compels us to reach a different result. The Supreme Court in Colautti was concerned with a vagueness challenge to a Pennsylvania abortion statute. The statute in question imposed criminal liability, without culpability, upon doctors who failed to try to save the lives of fetuses that may have been viable. The Supreme Court concluded that the words of the statute, and in particular the word viable, were vague and that this vagueness was compounded by the fact that the doctors were subjected to criminal liability without fault. It is important to note that the holding in Colautti did not require an element of scienter whenever privacy rights were regulated. The Court's focus on lack of scienter was based on the constitutional principle that a statutory requirement of guilty knowledge will clarify a vague statute. It was the vague statute, not the lack of scienter, that theoretically chilled the right of women to obtain abortions. In the case at bar, RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977) is not vague. Therefore, the holding of Colautti is not applicable to the facts of this case. The plaintiff further argues that the United States Constitution embodies a general principle of criminal responsibility (culpability) and because RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977) requires no mental culpability, the law is unconstitutional. With respect to statutory rape laws, the argument that a perpetrator's reasonable albeit mistaken belief of the victim's age should be a defense is not new. This argument, however, has been almost universally rejected. State v. Berry, 117 N.H. 352, 373 A.2d 355 (1977); State v. Davis, 108 N.H. 158, 229 A.2d 842 (1967); Nelson v. Moriarty, 484 F.2d 1034 (1st Cir. 1973). Contra, State v. Guest, 583 P.2d 836 (Alaska 1978); People v. Hernandez, 61 Cal.2d 529, 393 P.2d 673, 39 Cal. Rptr. 361 (1964). See generally Annot. 8 A.L.R.3d 1100 (1966). Recently, this court stated that, [o]ur statutory rape statutes have always applied to those under the age of consent regardless of their maturity and the fact that a female's apparent maturity may mislead a man into believing she is older than sixteen has been no defense. State v. Berry, 117 N.H. 352, 356, 373 A.2d 355, 357 (1977). [7-9] The plaintiff argues that a confluence of federal constitutional provisions requires us to overrule our past decisions. It should be noted at the outset that we are not concerned with the wisdom of the present law's policy in view of today's sexual mores. Instead, we are concerned only with whether the current law violates the Constitution by not allowing for a defense of honest or reasonable mistake. We hold that it does not. By enacting the applicable portions of RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977), the legislature has made the doing of an act a crime without mens rea. We believe that the legislature had the power to do so. A reasonable and honest belief that a person is over the age of consent is not a defense that arises to constitutional dimensions. Nelson v. Moriarty, 484 F.2d 1034, 1035 (1st Cir. 1973). The Supreme Court has never held that an honest mistake as to the age of the prosecutrix is a constitutional defense to statutory rape. Id. The plaintiff intended to have intercourse with this child and the burden was on him to determine her age or act at his peril. Accordingly, we reject the plaintiff's final argument. In sum, we hold that even assuming that the plaintiff has a federal privacy right to engage in consensual heterosexual intercourse with adults, the right does not require the invalidation of RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977). The reason is that the United States Constitution does not require us to permit the defense of an honest and reasonable mistake to a charged violation of the statutory provisions of RSA 632-A:3 (Supp. 1977). Petition for writ of habeas corpus is denied.