Opinion ID: 2633256
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Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Asserted Rational Grounds for the Statutory Distinction

Text: We now inquire whether there is a rational basis for the statutory classification requiring lifetime registration as a sex offender by a person, such as defendant, convicted of voluntary oral copulation with a 16-year-girl but not of a person convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with a minor of that age. In asserting such a rational basis, the Attorney General relies on two Court of Appeal decisions that have rejected equal protection challenges to section 290's mandatory lifetime registration for certain sex offenders. Neither case, however, describes a rational basis for the specific classification challenged here. The more recent of the two cases, Jones, supra, 101 Cal.App.4th 220, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d 10, involved the same constitutional issue as in this case. The Court of Appeal in Jones rejected the defendant's equal protection challenge because he failed to show that requiring lifetime registration of persons convicted of oral copulation with a minor (§ 288a (b)(1)) was not rationally related to the legitimate state interest of making potential recidivists available for police surveillance. ( Jones, supra, at p. 229, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d 10.) But the court's reasoning did not respond to the defendant's equal protection contention. There may be a rational basis to require both adults convicted of voluntary oral copulation with 16- or 17-year-old minors and adults convicted of voluntary intercourse with minors of that same age to register as sex offenders. But the defendant's equal protection challenge in Jones, like the equal protection challenge here, raised the issue whether the statutory distinction between persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation and those convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse rests on a rational basis. The Court of Appeal in Jones did not describe any rational basis for the distinction. In the earlier Court of Appeal decision, People v. Mills (1978) 81 Cal.App.3d 171, 146 Cal.Rptr. 411, the defendant was convicted of lewd conduct with a victim under 14 years of age (§ 288). He argued that to require him to register for life as a sex offender violated state and federal equal protection standards because some other sex offenders, including those convicted of unlawful intercourse with minors 14 to 17 years old, were not required to register. The Court of Appeal held that the Legislature could reasonably require all persons convicted of sexual offenses involving victims under the age of 14 to register without requiring all sex offenders to register. We agree with the Court of Appeal in Mills that the defendant there failed to show a denial of equal protection as to adults convicted of lewd acts with minors less than 14 years of age because all adults convicted of crimes requiring sexual acts with minors of that age were required to register. (See §§ 288, 288a, subd. (c), 290, subd. (a)(2).) But Mills does not affect the decision in this case, for, in contrast to Mills, defendant here can point to similarly situated persons, those convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with minors 16 to 17 years old, who are not required to register. In contending that there is a plausible rationale or a reasonably conceivable factual scenario that would justify a distinction between those convicted of voluntary oral copulation and those convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse, the Attorney General does not look back to 1947 when the lifetime registration requirement was first enacted. Instead, he asserts there are new facts that provide rational grounds for the Legislature today to require registration of adults convicted of voluntary oral copulation with minors 16 or 17 years old, while not requiring registration of adults convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with minors of that age. He points to various media reports that oral copulation among adolescents has increased in recent years because oral copulation involves no risk of pregnancy and has a lesser risk of transmitting HIV. [5] These media accounts, however, discuss the sexual conduct between adolescents, not conduct between adolescents and adults, as in this case. The frequency of voluntary oral copulation or voluntary intercourse between adolescents has little relevance to the issue here. Nevertheless, the Attorney General argues that it is reasonably conceivable that adults who engage in voluntary oral copulation with minors 16 or 17 years of age are more likely to repeat their offense than adults who engage in voluntary sexual intercourse with minors of the same age. He offers no evidence to support this speculative assertion, but insists that the absence of empirical evidence that adults convicted of voluntary oral copulation with 16- or 17-year-old minors are not more likely to reoffend than adults convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with such minors requires the courts to assume that the legislative distinction rests on a reasonably conceivable set of facts. But the absence of empirical evidence does not dictate the result. We must still determine whether the asserted rationale for the statutory distinction at issue rests on plausible reasons, or on reasonably conceivable facts that could provide rational grounds for the classification ( Warden, supra, 21 Cal.4th 628, 645, 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 283, 982 P.2d 154), and not upon fictitious purposes that the Legislature could not have contemplated ( id. at p. 649, 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 283, 982 P.2d 154). (See Newland v. Board of Governors, supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 712, 139 Cal.Rptr. 620, 566 P.2d 254 [holding that a statutory classification discriminating against persons convicted of misdemeanors failed the rational relationship test because the Legislature could not rationally have concluded that misdemeanants, as opposed to felons, constituted a class of particularly incorrigible offenders who are beyond hope of rehabilitation].) We must also inquire into the relationship between the classification and the statutory purpose. (See Nordlinger v. Hahn, supra, 505 U.S. 1, 12-14, 112 S.Ct. 2326, 120 L.Ed.2d 1.) Requiring all persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation with minors 16 to 17 years of age to register for life as a sex offender, while leaving registration to the discretion of the trial court for those convicted of sexual intercourse with minors of the same ages, cannot be justified by the speculative possibility that members of the former group are more likely to reoffend than those in the latter group. To sustain the distinction, there must be some plausible reason, based on reasonably conceivable facts, why judicial discretion is a sufficient safeguard to protect against repeat offenders who engage in sexual intercourse but not with offenders who engage in oral copulation. [6] (See D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners (1974) 11 Cal.3d 1, 23, 112 Cal.Rptr. 786, 520 P.2d 10 [possibility that some osteopaths received inadequate training cannot sustain a law forbidding licensure of all osteopaths].) No reason has been suggested why judicial discretion is insufficient, and none comes to mind. No other state requires mandatory lifetime registration as a sex offender for anyone convicted of voluntary oral copulation with a minor 16 to 17 years of age, but not for someone convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with minors of the same age. [7] No doubt there are some persons convicted of oral copulation with 16- or 17-year-old minors for whom lifetime registration is appropriate because their conduct and criminal history suggest a high risk of recidivism, but the same can be said of some individuals convicted of unlawful intercourse with minors in that same age group. The existence of such potential recidivists under both statutes argues for discretionary registration depending on the facts of the case rather than mandatory registration for all persons convicted under section 288a (b)(1). At oral argument, the Attorney General pointed to a 1997 Report of the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, which in discussing a proposal to require registration for persons convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse, queried: How many [teenage] mothers would want the father of their child to plead guilty to statutory rape and be subject to a [lifetime] registration requirement? (Assem. Com. on Public Safety, Rep. on Assem. Bill No. 1303 (1997-1998 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 22, 1997, p. 4.) The Attorney General asserts that the possibility of pregnancy distinguishes voluntary sexual intercourse from voluntary oral copulation, because requiring the father to register as a sex criminal might stigmatize both the mother and the child, and might harm the father's ability to support his child. As the Attorney General acknowledged at oral argument, however, persons who engage in sexual intercourse often also engage in oral copulation. (In his brief on the merits, the Attorney General argued for mandatory registration of persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation because that act often leads to sexual intercourse, and thus to teenage pregnancies.) The effect of the father's mandatory registration on the mother and child does not depend on whether the registration is imposed for the act of sexual intercourse or the act of oral copulation. The Attorney General's argument offers a reason why neither voluntary sexual intercourse nor voluntary oral copulation should entail mandatory registration, but not a reason to distinguish between the two acts. The dissent argues that defendant lacks standing to assert the constitutional rights of persons who have been convicted of both voluntary oral copulation and voluntary sexual intercourse. But defendant is not asserting the constitutional rights of persons with dual convictions; he is contesting the logic of the Attorney General's contention that the distinction between persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation and those convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse is justified by the possibility that intercourse will result in pregnancy. The point of defendant's argument is that if the possibility of pregnancy is a reason for avoiding mandatory registration of persons convicted of sexual intercourse, the same reason for avoiding mandatory registration applies to persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation, because those persons may have also engaged in intercourse (whether they were convicted of it or not) and a pregnancy may have resulted. In other words, the possibility of pregnancy, and the concern that requiring the father to register for life as a sex offender could stigmatize the mother or child, is a strong argument for giving a court discretion to reject registration for persons convicted of either voluntary sexual intercourse or voluntary oral copulation. It is not an argument that distinguishes between the two crimes. We recognize that the Legislature does not have to enact a comprehensive statute dealing with all categories of sex offenders when it undertakes to create a sex registration law such as section 290. In Kasler, supra, 23 Cal.4th 472, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 334, 2 P.3d 581, for example, this court sustained an assault weapon ban against the claim that it was unconstitutionally underinclusive because it did not include all weapons that might be considered comparable to the banned weapons, observing that the Legislature may take `one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.' ( Id. at p. 488, 97 Cal.Rptr.2d 334, 2 P.3d 581.) [8] But the one-step-at-a-time argument does not fit this case. The legislative distinction between oral copulation and sexual intercourse dates from the Legislature's initial enactment of the sex registration laws in 1947. On three occasions in the last 10 years the Legislature considered and rejected proposals that would require registration for sexual intercourse with a minor in violation of section 261.5. (See Assem. Bill No. 3341 (1995-1996 Reg. Sess.) as amended June 27, 1996; Assem. Bill No. 1303 (1996-1997 Reg. Sess.); Assem. Bill No. 2320 (2000-2001 Reg. Sess.).) It is apparent that the Legislature is not engaged in a process of fine-tuning its sex offender registration statutes in a way that will eventually eliminate the distinction between voluntary oral copulation with minors 16 to 17 years of age and voluntary sexual intercourse with such minors. To the contrary, the mandatory lifetime requirements for certain sex offenders in section 290 and related statutes stand as a comprehensive, enduring statutory schemenot a temporary or pilot programand the classifications it includes cannot be sustained unless they rest on a rational basis. The Attorney General's arguments, moreover, are at odds with the current purpose and structure of the mandatory registration provisions of section 290 and the Penal Code provisions on sex crimes generally. In 1947, when the Legislature enacted section 290, voluntary oral copulation between adults was criminal although voluntary adult intercourse was not. Today, however, statutes treat oral copulation and intercourse similarly: Current laws provide for more severe punishment and closer surveillance of persons who commit more serious sex crimes, such as forcible sexual acts or sexual acts involving children under 14 (see §§ 261 [rape], 262 [spousal rape], 288 [lewd conduct with victim under 14]) and provides less serious punishment for voluntary acts involving older adolescents (see §§ 261.5, 288a (b)(1)). Mandatory lifetime registration of all persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation in violation of section 288a (b)(1) stands out as an exception to the legislative scheme, a historical atavism dating back to a law repealed over 30 years ago that treated all oral copulation as criminal regardless of age or consent. We perceive no reason why the Legislature would conclude that persons who are convicted of voluntary oral copulation with adolescents 16 to 17 years old, as opposed to those who are convicted of voluntary intercourse with adolescents in that same age group, constitute a class of particularly incorrigible offenders ( Newland v. Board of Governors, supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 712, 139 Cal.Rptr. 620, 566 P.2d 254) who require lifetime surveillance as sex offenders. We therefore conclude that the statutory distinction in section 290 requiring mandatory lifetime registration of all persons who, like defendant here, were convicted of voluntary oral copulation with a minor of the age of 16 or 17, but not of someone convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse with a minor of the same age, violates the equal protection clauses of the federal and state Constitutions. [9] This conclusion does not preclude the Legislature from requiring lifetime registration both for persons convicted of voluntary oral copulation and for those convicted of voluntary sexual intercourse, thus treating both groups the same.