Court Opinion

ID: 9602530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:56:33.597078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:04.560197
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
The majority opinion conjures up evidence, takes judicial notice of facts not judicially noticeable, and arrives at the ominous holding that a jury is entitled to infer guilt on the part of a defendant from the fact that he was arrested and brought before them.
Section 76-1-501, Utah Code Annotated, provides:
(1) A defendant in a criminal proceeding is presumed to be innocent until each element of the offense charged against him is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In absence of such proof, the defendant shall be acquitted.
The State certainly did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant and the girl were not married. In fact there is no evidence of this essential element in the record. The majority opinion states that the jury could infer that the couple were not married from the fact that the girl’s name was that of her parents, and not that of the deféndant. There is no evidence in this record, either positive or negative, of what the girl’s name actually was, but if there were, it would have no significance. A girl’s maiden name is her legal name and she is entitled to use it whether or not she is married.
The “circumstantial evidence” denoted in the majority opinion is based on the fact that the defendant was arrested, and exercised his constitutional right to remain si*142lent. A jury cannot infer guilt from such circumstances.1
Defendant also argues that Section 76-5-401 is unconstitutional and in violation of the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Utah, as it discriminates against males and denies them equal protection of the law, since women who engage in sexual intercourse with males under the age of sixteen years of age cannot be similarly charged with this crime. Defendant cannot raise this constitutional question since he is over the age of sixteen years, and thus is not within the class of persons denied equal protection. However, I would reverse on the first ground, as, in my opinion, the District Court erred in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss.
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of WILKINS, J.

. Utah Constitution, Article I, Sec. 12; U.S. Constitution, Fifth Amendment; Sections 77-1-10 and 77 — 44-5, Utah Code Annotated, 1953; State v. Martinez, 56 Utah 351, 191 P. 214 (1920); Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965).