Court Opinion

ID: 9709469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:48:31.989847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:49.187347
License: Public Domain

DAVID T. PROSSER, J.
¶ 49. (dissenting). The issue in this case is whether Wis. Stat. § 948.05(l)(c) may be construed to require the state to prove that a person charged with distributing photographs or other reproductions of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct knew that the child was a child, i.e., knew that the person in the pictures had not attained the age of 18 years. The majority concludes that such a construction may not be given to § 948.05(l)(c) and "decline[s] to save" portions of the statute, instead holding them unconstitutional. I disagree and respectfully dissent.
I.
¶ 50. When the constitutionality of a statute is challenged in court, there is normally a strong presumption that the enactment is constitutional, Treiber v. Knoll, 135 Wis. 2d 58, 64, 398 N.W.2d 756 (1987); State v. Cissel, 127 Wis. 2d 205, 214, 378 N.W.2d 691 (1985), and the party seeking to overcome the pre*142sumption must prove the statute unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Janssen, 219 Wis. 2d 362, 370, 580 N.W.2d 260 (1998); State v. Carpenter, 197 Wis. 2d 252, 263, 541 N.W.2d 105 (1995). However, the burden shifts to the proponent of the statute when the statute infringes on the exercise of First Amendment rights. State v. Thiel, 183 Wis. 2d 505, 522-23, 515 N.W.2d 847 (1994); State v. Kevin L.C., 216 Wis. 2d 166, 184, 576 N.W.2d 62 (Ct. App. 1997).
¶ 51. Nonetheless, courts have a duty to uphold statutes when they reasonably can. In Demmith v. Wisconsin Judicial Conference, 166 Wis. 2d 649, 664 n.13, 480 N.W.2d 502 (1992), we asserted that "The court must interpret a statute, if at all possible, in a manner that will preserve the statute as a constitutional enactment." In Browne v. Milwaukee Bd. of School Directors, 83 Wis. 2d 316, 332, 265 N.W.2d 559 (1978), we said that when a legislative enactment is attacked "the cardinal rule of statutory construction is to preserve a statute and to find it constitutional if it is at all possible to do so." In State ex rel. Harvey v. Morgan, 30 Wis. 2d 1, 13, 139 N.W.2d 585 (1966), we declared that "the duty of this court is not to impugn the motives of the legislature, but rather, if possible,'to so construe the statute as to find it in harmony with accepted constitutional principles." In Harvey, we approvingly quoted State ex rel. Thomson v. Giessel, 265 Wis. 558, 565, 61 N.W.2d 903 (1953), for the proposition that "Our search must be for a means of sustaining the act, not for reasons which might require its condemnation." Harvey, 30 Wis. 2d at 13.
¶ 52. Again, in State ex rel. Chobot v. Circuit Court for Milwaukee County, 61 Wis. 2d 354, 367, 212 N.W.2d 690 (1973), we stated, "[T]his court has the duty to uphold the statute if it can and in the past has *143supplied deficiencies to save a statute. See Huebner v. State (1967), 33 Wis. 2d 505, 147 N.W.2d 646, where this court granted a judicial hearing in sex deviate cases not provided for by the statute in order to save the statute." This was also our approach in State v. Post, 197 Wis. 2d 279, 329, 541 N.W.2d 115 (1995), where the court said, "This court has previously construed deficient statutes to include constitutionally required procedures," and afforded the right to request a jury for discharge hearings under §§ 980.09 and 980.10.1
¶ 53. The court's duty was summed up in State ex rel. Carnation M.P. Co. v. Emery, 178 Wis. 147, 160, 189 N.W. 564 (1922): "If there is any reasonable basis upon which the legislation may constitutionally rest, the court must assume that the legislature had such fact in mind and passed the act pursuant thereto... .All facts necessary to sustain the act must be taken as conclusively found by the legislature, if any such facts may be reasonably conceived in the mind of the court."
¶ 54. We all understand, in the wake of United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64 (1994), that portions of § 948.05(l)(c) would be unconstitutional if the statute were not construed to require the state to prove that a defendant who had never personally interacted with the exploited child knew that the child had not attained the age of 18 years. This scienter element is indispensable. The question then is whether it is "at all possible" to interpret or construe the statute to require this indispensable element, because, if it is *144"at all possible," this court has a duty to construe the statute accordingly.
II.
¶ 55. In X-Citement Video, the United States Supreme Court was required to interpret Title 18 U.S.C. § 2252 (1988 ed. and Supp. V) which provided, in relevant part:
(a) Any person who-
(1) knowingly transports or ships in interstate or foreign commerce by any means including by computer or mails, any visual depiction, if-
(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) such visual depiction is of such conduct;
(2) knowingly receives, or distributes, any visual depiction that has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or which contains materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported, by any means including by computer, or knowingly reproduces any visual depiction for distribution in interstate or foreign commerce or through the mails, if-
(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) such visual depiction is of such conduct;
shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section. (Emphasis added.)
¶ 56. The Court stated that "The critical determination which we must make is whether the term 'knowingly' in subsections (1) and (2) modifies the *145phrase 'the use of a minor' in subsections (1)(A) and (2)(A)." X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 68. The Court acknowledged that the most natural grammatical reading suggested that the term "knowingly" modified only the surrounding verbs: transports, ships, receives, distributes, or reproduces. "Under this construction," the Court admitted, "the word 'knowingly' would not modify the elements of the minority of the performers. . . ." Id. (emphasis added). However, the Court construed the statute to provide that linkage "because of the respective presumptions that some form of scien-ter is to be implied in a criminal statute even if not expressed, and that a statute is to be construed where fairly possible so as to avoid substantial constitutional questions." Id. at 69 (emphasis added).
¶ 57. Because "the age of the performers is the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct," id. at 73, the Court concluded that "the term 'knowingly' in § 2252 extends both to the sexually explicit nature of the material and to the age of the performers." Id. at 78 (emphasis added).
¶ 58. X-Citement Video is the source of the constitutional determination that a defendant in certain prosecutions must know that the person in certain sexually explicit pictures is a child. But X-Citement Video is also a model for how courts should interpret statutes to preserve them against constitutional attack.
¶ 59. Another model is State v. Petrone, 161 Wis. 2d 530, 468 N.W.2d 676 (1991). In Petrone, this court was called upon to interpret Wis. Stat. § 940.203 (1987-88), the predecessor to § 948.05, which is the very statute under scrutiny here. The defendant was charged with violating § 940.203(2), which provided:
*146No person may photograph, film, videotape, record the sounds of or display in any way a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
¶ 60. Section 940.203(2) did not expressly embody the element of scienter. With that omission, subsection (2) was markedly different from subsections (1), (3), and (4) of the statute because each of those subsections contained the word "knowingly," whereas subsection (2) did not. Hence, the subsection was described by the defendant as deliberately eliminating the constitutionally-required element of scienter. The state disagreed, contending that either the legislature intended scienter to be an element of the crime or the court will supply this deficiency in the statute to uphold its constitutionality. Petrone, 161 Wis. 2d at 550-51.
¶ 61. This court agreed, stating that, "The court has interpreted statutes to save them from being declared unconstitutional." Id. at 551-52 n.12, citing State ex rel. Chobot v. Circuit Court for Milwaukee County, 61 Wis. 2d at 367.
¶ 62. Then the court added: "We agree with the parties that scienter is a constitutionally required element of the offense charged. We need not decide for purposes of this case whether the legislature intended the statute to include the element of scienter or whether this court would read the element of scienter into the statute to enable the statute to pass constitutional muster." Petrone, 161 Wis. 2d at 552.
¶ 63. The most recent model for this court is the court of appeals decision in this case. State v. Zarnke, 215 Wis. 2d 71, 572 N.W.2d 491 (1997). The court of appeals reviewed the arguments and stated:
*147Scienter, or guilty knowledge, has always been an element of criminal sexual exploitation. More precisely, it has always been the legislature's intent to prevent conviction under § 948.05, STATS., of one who was reasonably ignorant of the actor's minority.
Id. at 78.
¶ 64. The court of appeals cited as authority for this statement a drafter's note in § 55 of 1987 Wis. Act 332, the section which created § 948.05. It wrote: "The drafter's note states that the new law retains knowledge as an element of the crime. It also notes that New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 765 (1982), holds that criminal responsibility may not be imposed for the acts prohibited by the exploitation statute without some element of scienter on the part of the defendant." Zarnke, 215 Wis. 2d at 78. This is the same note cited by this court in Petrone, 161 Wis. 2d at 551 n.11, where the court said, "[A] recent recodification of sec. 940.203 suggests that scienter was always an element of the offense. . . .The drafter's note to sec. 948.05 declares that the hew law 'does retain' knowledge as an element of the crime, thereby implying that sec. 940.203 included an element of scienter or knowledge."2
¶ 65. To sum up, X-Citement Video, Petrone, and the court of appeals decision in Zarnke are three mod*148els for how this court should address the scienter issue in child pornography cases in the face of an arguably-deficient statute.
III.
¶ 66. This brings us to the matter at hand. In 1988, the legislature recodified a number of statutes relating to crimes and civil offenses against children. 1987 Wisconsin Act 332. Section 940.203 from the 1987-88 session was repealed and recreated in a revised form as § 948.05. The relevant parts of the new statute read as follows:
*149948.05 Sexual exploitation of a child. (1) Whoever does any of the following with knowledge of the character and content of the sexually explicit conduct involving the child is guilty of a Class C felony:
(b) Photographs, films, videotapes, records the sounds of or displays in any way a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
(c) Produces, performs in, profits from, promotes, imports into the state, reproduces, advertises, sells, distributes or possesses with intent to sell or distribute, any undeveloped film, photographic negative, photograph, motion picture, videotape, sound recording or other reproduction of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct....
(3) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution for violation of this section if the defendant had reasonable cause to believe that the child had attained the age of 18 years, and the child exhibited to the defendant, or the defendant's agent or client, a draft card, driver's license, birth certificate or other official or apparently official document purporting to establish that the child had attained the age of 18 years. A defendant who raises this affirmative defense has the burden of proving this defense by a preponderance of the evidence.
¶ 67. The question is whether this overall statutory scheme permits § 948.05(l)(c) to be construed to require the state to prove that a defendant charged with distributing a photograph or other reproduction of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct knew that the child had not attained the age of 18 years. I conclude that it does.
*150A.
¶ 68. In this case, the substance of the offense is the distribution of child pornography. If pornography is obscene, it can be lawfully prosecuted under an obscenity statute. If it is not obscene, it is illegal only when it involves the sexually explicit conduct of a child. The same sexually explicit conduct involving an adult is not illegal because the adult cannot be viewed as an exploited victim. In X-Citement Video, the Supreme Court declared that "[a]ge of minority in § 2252 indisputably possesses the same status as an elemental fact because nonobscene, sexually explicit materials involving persons over the age of 17 are protected by the First Amendment.... Therefore, the age of the performers is the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct." X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 72-73.
¶ 69. The legislature understood this analysis. At the same time that § 948.05 was created, the legislature also created § 948.12, which reads as follows:
948.12 Possession of child pornography. Whoever possesses any undeveloped film, photographic negative, photograph, motion picture, videotape or other pictorial reproduction of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct under all of the following circumstances is guilty of a Class E felony:
(1) The person knows that he or she possesses the material.
(2) The person knows the character and content of the sexually explicit conduct shown in the material.
(3) The person knows or reasonably should know that the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct has not attained the age of 18 years. (Emphasis added.)
*151The Legislative Council Note following this section reads in part:
Under the sexual exploitation of a child statute, as revised in this bill [s. 948.05], it is unlawful to be involved in the production or distribution of child pornography, but mere possession, without intent, to sell or distribute, is not unlawful. In recognition that pedophiles and other users of child pornography (the "fruits" of child sexual exploitation) often acquire, transfer and exchange these materials outside the commercial marketplace, in ways not fully covered by the child sexual exploitation statute, the new statute contains a total ban on the intentional possession of child pornography. This prohibition against possession is intended to supplement the restrictions in the child sexual exploitation statute and thereby more effectively deter and penalize the sexual abuse of children than is possible under current law.
Under the new statute, if the defendant knowingly possesses the pornographic material, with knowledge of its character and content and under circumstances in which the defendant knew or should have known that the child was younger than 18 years of age, the defendant is guilty of a Class E felony. Criminal intent, as an element of the crime, is indicated by the "knowledge" requirement. Under the criminal code, knowledge requires only that the actor believes that a specified fact exists [s. 939.23(2)].
Legislative Council Note, 1987, Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.05 (West 1996).
¶ 70. In § 948.12 — possession of child pornography — the legislature made it clear that knowledge "that the child engaged in sexually explicit conduct has not attained the age of 18 years" is a fundamental *152element of the offense. The note makes it clear that §§ 948.12 and 948.05 should be read in pari materia. That being so, it is very hard to imagine that the legislature intended that simple possession of child pornography — a Class E felony — requires knowledge of age but distribution of child pornography — a Class C felony — does not require knowledge of age. Our legislature must have understood, as the Supreme Court observed in X-Citement Video, that "The opportunity for reasonable mistake as to age increases significantly once the victim is reduced to a visual depiction, unavailable for questioning by the distributor or receiver." X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 72 n.2. It is unreasonable to attribute to the legislature a desire to ensnare persons who lack guilty knowledge. Therefore, the element of scienter as to age should be read into the statute not only to enable the statute to pass constitutional muster but also to reflect the intent of the legislature.
B.
¶ 71. The majority argues that this scienter element cannot be read into this statute because of a note to § 948.05. Majority op. at 127 n.3, 138. The note to § 948.05 states:
NOTE: Revises the sexual exploitation of children statute [s. 940.203] to:...
3. Eliminate the knowledge of the age of the child as an element of the crime of child sexual exploitation, which the prosecution has the burden of proving, and recognize, instead, an affirmative defense based on knowledge of the age of the child, which the defendant must raise and prove. Under sub. (3), the defendant has a defense to criminal *153liability for violation of the statute, if he or she had reasonable cause to believe that the child victim of sexual exploitation was 18 years of age or older and the child exhibited to the defendant, or the defendant's agent or client, a draft card, driver's license, birth certificate or other official or apparently official document purporting to establish that the child had attained the age of 18 years. As an affirmative defense, the defendant has the burden of raising the defense and of proving the defense by a preponderance of the evidence. This affirmative defense is comparable to the affirmative defense recognized in the exposing a child to harmful material statute, as revised in s. 948.11 of this bill.
Legislative Council Note, 1987, Wis. Stat. Ann. § 948.05 (West 1996).
¶ 72. Several responses may be made to this argument. First, the note under § 948.05 is completely accurate in circumstances where a defendant is photographing, filming, videotaping, or recording the sounds of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct. It is accurate in other situations where the defendant has been in personal contact with the child and may reasonably be required to ascertain the victim's age. This is clear after one examines the final sentence of the Legislative Council Note as provided above: "This affirmative defense is comparable to the affirmative defense recognized in the exposing a child to harmful material statute, as revised in s. 948.11 of this bill."
¶ 73. Wis. Stat. §948.11(2)(a) (1995-96) provides:
Whoever, with knowledge of the nature of the material, sells, rents, exhibits, transfers or loans to a child any material which is harmful to children, *154with or without monetary consideration, is guilty of a Class E felony.
A defendant charged with violating § 948.11 has the burden of proving, as an affirmative defense, that he or she "had reasonable cause to believe that the child had attained the age of 18 years." Wis. Stat. § 948.11(2)(c).3
¶ 74. In State v. Kevin L.C., 216 Wis. 2d 166, 576 N.W.2d 62 (Ct. App. 1997), the court of appeals faced a constitutional challenge to § 948.11. As in this case, the defendant argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in X-Citement Video required that the court declare § 948.11 unconstitutional for lack of a scienter requirement regarding age. Although the court of appeals acknowledged that § 948.11(2)(a) does not require the state to prove that a defendant knew that the person to whom harmful materials are exhibited or transferred is a child, the court recognized that an element of scien-ter is not necessary when a "perpetrator confronts the underage victim personally and may reasonably be required to ascertain that victim's age." Kevin L. C., 216 Wis. 2d at 186-87, quoting X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 72 n.2. The court of appeals thus held:
Because § 948.11(2)(a), Stats., criminalizes acts where an individual personally confronts, or has the opportunity to personally confront, a specific child, thereby allowing the individual to easily ascertain *155the child's age, we conclude that the statute does not create an unreasonable burden on the individual's First Amendment rights.
¶ 75. The Legislative Council Note following § 948.05 provides that the affirmative defense in the statute is comparable to the affirmative defense provided for in §948.11. Kevin L.C. correctly concludes that § 948.11 only criminalizes acts where an individual personally confronts a child, thereby allowing the individual to easily ascertain the child's age. Therefore, the application of the Legislative Council Note following § 948.05 should be limited to situations where the defendant has been in personal contact with the child and may reasonably be required to ascertain the victim's age. The note does not constrain the court's interpretation of the statute with respect to the statute's criminalization of the distribution of photographs or other reproductions of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Limiting the application of the note to situations where it makes sense is very different from ignoring or repudiating the note.4
¶ 76. Second, the court of appeals shrewdly observed that it "is absurd and unreasonable to view the statutory scheme as intending to create a defense that one could never successfully assert." Zarnke, 215 Wis. 2d at 79. This observation is based on the fact that the affirmative defense, to be successfully raised, must establish not only that there is "reasonable cause" to *156believe that the child has attained the age of 18 years but also that the child produced suitable documentary evidence of majority for the defendant. An inanimate photograph or other reproduction of a child will not produce "a draft card, driver's license, birth certificate or other official or apparently official document" to deceive the defendant into believing that the child depicted is an adult. When viewing a photograph, what you see is what you get.
¶ 77. Third, a blanket application of the note under § 948.05 cannot be reconciled with the note under § 948.12. Possession normally precedes distribution. The legislature has deemed trafficking in child pornography a more serious offense than possessing child pornography. It is counterintuitive to suppose that the more serious offense has intentionally been made easier to prove than the less serious offense.
¶ 78. Finally, an overbroad note which is not an official component of a statute cannot nullify this court's duty if "at all possible" to construe a statute to find it in harmony with accepted constitutional principles. Only statutory language can create the impossibility of reasonable construction.
¶ 79. As I see it, our duty is to read into the statute the element of scienter as to age of the child and to construe § 948.05(3), the affirmative defense, to apply only to those situations in which there has been or could have been personal contact between the defendant ánd the child. Those are the situations in which the defendant will "raise" the defense. I do not see that the statutory language creates the impossibility of reasonable construction.
*157IV.
¶ 80. Section 948.05(1) reads:
Whoever does any of the following with knowledge of the character and content of the sexually explicit conduct involving the child is guilty of a Class C felony:...
There can be no dispute that this statute has a knowledge requirement with respect to "the character and content of the sexually explicit conduct."
¶ 81. The subject under discussion here is "sexually explicit conduct" involving a child. The character and content of photographs or other reproductions depicting the sexually explicit conduct of small children or prepubescent children is quite different from the character and content of photographs depicting the sexually explicit conduct of adults. One cannot have "knowledge" of the character and content of kiddie porn without knowledge that the "kiddies" involved have not attained the age of 18 years. Knowledge of minority is inherent in knowledge of the character and content of kiddie porn.
¶ 82. By contrast, sexually explicit images of young persons 16 or 17 years of age may be difficult to distinguish from images of young adults. Consequently, it is natural to include knowledge of minority as an element of distributing kiddie porn, and it is imperative to include knowledge of minority as an element when dealing with pictures of post-pubescent children.
¶ 83. The majority's sanitized opinion does not mention that the defendant here was arrested and charged with reproducing, distributing, or possessing with intent to sell or distribute images of young juveniles, described in the criminal complaint as "visu*158ally estimated to be between 5 and 7 years old, involved in sexually explicit poses/conduct." The complaint alleges that the defendant admitted to a 17-year-old boy, to whom he allegedly showed the pictures, that he knew the juveniles in the sexually explicit pictures or images were as young as 5 to 7 years old.
¶ 84. No defendant should be convicted of distributing child pornography without proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew the minority of the children in the sexually explicit material. But no defendant should escape prosecution because this court declined to save the statute by giving it a reasonable construction.

 See also State ex rel. Terry v. Schubert, 74 Wis. 2d 487, 498, 247 N.W.2d 109 (1976); State ex rel. Farrell v. Stovall, 59 Wis. 2d 148, 168, 207 N.W.2d 809 (1973); State ex rel. Matalik v. Schubert, 57 Wis. 2d 315, 327, 204 N.W.2d 13 (1973); State ex rel. Garner v. Gray, 55 Wis. 2d 574, 589, 201 N.W.2d 163 (1972).

following the decision of the court of appeals in Zarnke, the Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instructions Committee approved Wis JI — Criminal 2122 in April, 1998. The jury instruction states:
Sexual exploitation of a child, as defined in § 948.05(l)(c) of the Criminal Code of Wisconsin, is committed by one who distributes any undeveloped film, photographic negative, photograph, motion picture, videotape, sound recording or other reproduction of a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct with knowledge of the character and content of the sexually explicit conduct involving the child.
*148Before you may find the defendant guilty of this offense, the State must prove by evidence which satisfies you beyond a reasonable doubt that the following three elements are present.
The first element requires that the defendant distributed any (undeveloped film) (photographic negative) (photograph) (motion picture) (videotape) (sound recording) (or other reproduction) of [a child] [ (name of child) ] engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
[Consent by (name of child) is not a defense.]
"Sexually explicit conduct" means actual or simulated (sexual intercourse) (bestiality) (masturbation) (sexual sadism or sexual masochistic abuse) (lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area).
The second element requires that [the child] [ (name of child) ] had not attained the age of 18 years.
The third element requires that the defendant knew that the child in the-was engaged in-and knew that the child had not attained the age of 18 years.
If you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant distributed any (undeveloped film) (photographic negative) (photograph) (motion picture) (videotape) (sound recording) (or other reproduction) of [a child] [ (name of child) ] engaged in sexually explicit conduct, that the defendant knew that the child was engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and knew that the child had not attained the age of 18 years, you should find the defendant guilty.
If you are not so satisfied, you must find the defendant not guilty.

 Wis. Stat. § 948.11(2)(c) provides as follows:
(c) It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution for a violation of this section if the defendant had reasonable cause to believe that the child had attained the age of 18 years, and the child exhibited to the defendant a draft card, driver’s license, birth certificate or other official or apparently official document purporting to establish that the child had attained the age of 18 years. A defendant who raises this affirmative defense has the burden of proving this defense by a preponderance of the evidence.

 In relying on the note as a binding interpretation of the affirmative defense in the statute, the majority apparently believes that the legislature consciously eliminated knowledge of the age of the child as an element of the crime of importing "into the state.. .any.. .sound recording.. .of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct...." Wis. Stat. § 948.05(l)(c). That the legislature intended such a result is highly implausible.