Delinquency Case Law

In re T.A.J. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1350 [73 Cal.Rptr.331]. Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2.

A juvenile court petition was filed alleging that a 16-year-old boy had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old female. The petition alleged the child engaged in statutory and forcible rape. At the jurisdictional hearing the only issue was whether the sexual encounter was consensual. The juvenile court found that the act was consensual and that the statutory rape charge was true, but made no finding with regard to the forcible rape count. The child appealed, contending that Penal Code section 261.5 was unconstitutional, both facially and as applied to him. Specifically, he contended that the statute (1) violated his right to privacy under the California Constitution and (2) may not be constitutionally applied to him since he was a member of the class the statute was designed to protect. The Court of Appeal rejected both contentions. First, the court held that American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16 Cal.4th 307, did not confer upon children the right to engage in consensual sexual intercourse. "While we do not ignore the reality that many California teenagers are sexually active, that fact alone does not establish that minors have a right to privacy to engage in sexual intercourse. We accept the premise that due to age and immaturity, minors often lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take account of both immediate and long-range consequences." The court further found that the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists for a child deciding whether to have an abortion (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p.373), "cannot be imputed to their decision to engage in consensual sexual intercourse." On the child's second contention, the court noted that the legislative intent behind the statutory rape law was to make illegal sexual intercourse both between children and adults and between children. Although children cannot be prosecuted for felony statutory rape (unlawful intercourse between an adult and a child) because the child is the victim in such a crime, there is no parallel with regard to misdemeanor statutory rape, which by its terms involves sexual intercourse between two children.