Court Opinion

ID: 9851357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:11:14.576763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:54.389501
License: Public Domain

CARDINE, Justice,
specially concurring, in which ROSE, Justice, joins.
Although the indecent liberties statute, § 14-3-105, W.S.1977 (December 1978 Replacement), does not complement the more comprehensive sexual assault statutes to create a reasonable body of law relating to sex crimes, I must, in this case, concur in the opinion of the court. The indecent liberties statutes with which we are here concerned, § 14-3-105, W.S.1977, provides:
“Any person knowingly taking immodest, immoral or indecent liberties with *428any child or knowingly causing or encouraging any child to cause or encourage another child to commit with him any immoral or indecent act is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) or imprisoned in the penitentiary not more than ten (10) years, or both.” (Emphasis added.)
The indecent liberties statute does not, within the statute, tell us the age of a “child.” Sections 14-3-104, and 14-3-106, W.S.1977, also concern crimes against children and must be read with the indecent liberties statute in determining the age of a “child” as intended by the legislature. Section 14-3-104, W.S.1977, within itself, establishes the age of a child as 16 years:
“Anyone who solicits, procures or knowingly encourages anyone under the age of sixteen (16) years to engage in illicit sexual penetration or sexual intrusion as defined in W.S. 6-4-203 is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be imprisoned for a term not more than five (5) years.” (Emphasis added.)
But, § 14-3-106, W.S.1977, establishes the age of a child as 19 years, providing in part:
“(a) Prior to the filing of an information or indictment charging a violation of W.S. 14-3-102(a)(ii), (iii) or (v)(D) or (E), 14-3-104 or 14-3-105, neither the names of the person accused or the victim nor any other information reasonably likely to disclose the identity of the victim shall be released or negligently allowed to be released to the public by any public employee except as authorized by the judge or justice with jurisdiction over the criminal charges. The name of the person accused may be released to the public to aid or facilitate an arrest.
“(b) After the filing of an information or indictment and upon the request of a minor victim or another acting on behalf of a minor victim, the trial court may * * restrict the disclosure or publication of information reasonably likely to identify the minor victim.
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“(d) A release of a name or other information to the public in violation of the proscriptions of this section shall not stand as a bar to the prosecution of a defendant nor be grounds for dismissal of any charges against a defendant.
“(e) As used in this section ‘minor victim’ means a person under the age of nineteen (19) years.” (Emphasis added.)
The legislature recently enacted § 14-3-106, W.S.1977, 1985 Cum.Supp., to enable district courts to withhold sexual misconduct details from the public at the request of “minor victims.” This statute defines “minor victims” as being persons up to the age of 19 years, and it only provides for nondisclosure in cases being prosecuted under §§ 14-3-104, and 14-3-105, W.S.1977.1 The legislature would not have defined “minor victim” as it did in § 14-3-106 unless § 14-3-104 or § 14-3-105 involved victims up to the age of 19 years. Section 14-3-104 cannot be one of the substantive statutes incorporating the 19-year age limit from § 14-3-106 because, by its terms, it operates only in eases where persons under age 16 are victimized. Consequently, only § 14-3-105 can employ the 19-year age limit of § 14-3-106. I can only conclude that the word “child” in § 14-3-105 means the same as “minor victim” in § 14-3-106. It appears, therefore, the legislative intent with respect to a “child” with whom indecent liberties are proscribed under § 14-3-105 can be any person under the age of 19 years.
My concurrence in this case does not change my dissenting position in McArtor v. State, Wyo., 699 P.2d 288 (1985). I still believe that when a defendant can be charged under a specific sexual assault statute, then he should not be charged under the indecent liberties statute. If the *429record in this case demonstrated that the defendant could have been charged with sexual assault, then I would have accepted a properly preserved argument by appellant in which he claimed that he was charged under the wrong statute. In this case, however, appellant pled guilty after the jury was impaneled but before any evidence was produced relevant to my McArtor dissent. I cannot say that § 14-3-105 was the improper statute in this case because for all I know none of the sexual assault statutes applied to appellant’s conduct. The only issue that was arguably preserved in this appeal was whether the indecent liberties statute applies when the victim is between 15 and 19 years of age. I agree with the majority’s decision that it does apply, although that may, on occasion, lead to some inconsistent, strange and absurd results.
A word needs to be said about the inconsistencies between the indecent liberties statute and the sexual assault statutes. Even if the indecent liberties statute is applied narrowly to cases not covered under sexual assault, as I suggested in McArtor, it still creates unfairness. For example, if a 40-year-old man uses his authority to make sexual contact with a 13-year-old female, he can be convicted of sexual assault in the fourth degree and punished by up to one year in prison under § 6-2-305 and 6-2-303(a)(vi), W.S.1977 (June 1983 Replacement). If, however, a 17-year-old boy fondles his 18-year-old girlfriend, then they both could be convicted of taking indecent liberties and sentenced to ten years in prison under § 14-3-105, W.S.1977 (December 1978 Replacement). I am not saying that prosecutors would use the indecent liberties statute to punish such conduct. Nor am I saying that the statute must inevitably be interpreted to criminalize this conduct. My point is that the indecent liberties statute has been rendered largely obsolete by the carefully tailored sexual assault statutes. It needs to be restricted to cover that small range of sexual misconduct which is not proscribed by sexual assault statutes. Its sentencing portion should also be restricted accordingly.

. Section 14-3-106, W.S.1977, also refers to § 14-3-102(a)(ii), (iii), (v)(D) and (E), but that reference was obviously a legislative oversight because those sections were repealed by the time of enactment of § 14-3-106.