Romeo and Juliet
Wisconsin Adopts Romeo and Juliet Law…Sort of, March of 2018 Governor Scott Walker signed 2017 Assembly Bill 414 (now 2017 Wisconsin Act 174), creating the brand new crime of Underage Sexual Activity.
In a saner world, a statute specifically criminalizing consensual sex between teenagers wouldn’t be good news, but that’s not the world we live in. But the bill wasn’t made retroactive to teens who were prosecuted prior to March 2019.
Proposal: AB414 (-3361) View Bill History
relating to: underage sexual activity and providing a criminal penalty.
1/12/2018:
an
As you already know if you’ve read Robert’s story, his conviction for that very same act carries a much uglier name: 2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a Child. In addition, that crime was a felony, and a registry offense.
As of March 30 (one day after today’s publication of the Act), sex with a “child” who has attained the age of 15 will, if the actor is under the age of 19:
Be known as Underage Sexual Activity rather than 2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a Child Be a Class A misdemeanor rather than a Class C felony Carry a maximum sentence of 9 months in jail, rather than up to 20 years in prison, Not require sex offender registration and reporting, unless it is necessary in the interest of public protection While the more reasonable model is to provide an exception to the prohibition on sex with a minor for age peers, this change represents a significant–and, for many people, life-altering–improvement.
If this law had been in effect in 1999, Robert would not have a felony conviction today, and would be eligible for small business loans and other opportunities. He would have been incarcerated for no more than 9 months–less than 1/5 of the time he served. That time would have been served in a county jail rather than a state prison.
He would never have been required to register as a sex offender, and could have developed an entirely different relationship with his stepdaughter and nieces, since he would have been free to take them to parks and carnivals, attend school events, and otherwise play a natural role in their lives. He wouldn’t have felt that he had to delay having his own child for years, until he had completed parole and could be sure that his life wouldn’t be interrupted again.
He wouldn’t have hit a major speed bump, professionally and psychologically, when an angry former employee told an important client about his conviction. He started to hate his job in his business wearing all the hats and responsibilities. Robert wanted out of being the face in his businesses. Feeling unwanted by society and humiliated in fear of getting kicked off more jobs.
The Tangled Web of Teen Sex Laws
A lot went wrong in Robert’s case, from his decision to talk to the police without consulting an attorney to some questionable legal advice to a switch in probation officers and a move that turned out to be ill-advised. But, the core problem that started the dominoes falling was Robert’s misunderstanding of Wisconsin’s teen sex laws. He was hardly alone in his confusion. Most teenagers, when engaging in consensual activity with their similarly-aged boyfriends and girlfriends, don’t think of what they’re doing as “sexual assault of a child”—or as a crime at all.
Today, the same act is a misdemeanor. In March of 2018, the state of Wisconsin finally amended the law, creating the misdemeanor crime of Underage Sexual Activity. The new law, which was drafted specifically to address situations like Robert’s, includes a maximum sentence of 9 months in jail and generally does not require registration as a sex offender. It’s no surprise that teens are confused. In fact, they aren’t the only ones. One of the challenges Robert has faced as a business owner on Wisconsin’s public sex offender registry is that people he encounters often struggle to believe that he went to prison because of a consensual teenage relationship. Most people he talks to are shocked when he points to the actual language of the law, and many are quick to admit that they’re guilty of the same crime. Of course, the vast majority of the approximately 47% of high school-aged kids who are sexually active in the U.S. aren’t charged with a crime.
That’s good, but it also makes it easy for people to assume that there must be more to the story. In 1998-99, when Robert and J. were dating, any sexual contact between people under the age of 18 was a crime. That’s still true in 2018, although the specifics have changed somewhat. There was and is no exception for couples close in age.
So, two 17-year-old high school seniors having sex with one another weeks before they turn 18 are both committing a misdemeanor—and, are each the victim of a misdemeanor committed by the other. If one party is 14 and the other 16, the older teen commits a felony and could spend decades in prison. Yet, a 50-year-old man with a 16-year-old girl can only be charged with a misdemeanor, and faces a maximum of 9 months in jail.If you’re not confused yet, consider that just across the border in Iowa, Robert wouldn’t have committed a crime at all: there, sexual contact with a person over the age of 14 was a crime only if there was an age difference of more than four years. In another border state, Illinois, the act would have been a misdemeanor. In Michigan, sexual intercourse would have been a crime, but other sexual contact, including oral sex, would not. And, in Minnesota, Robert’s interactions with J. would have constituted a crime…but wouldn’t have if they’d been just a few months closer in age. More than half of U.S. states provide some kind of exception for close-in-age teens and young adults, often described as “Romeo and Juliet laws,” but not Wisconsin. Not then, and not today, although the 2018 amendment has reduced penalties and the classification of the crime for some close-in-age couples. Until 1981, Wisconsin law provided a defense for those sexually involved with teens 15 and older. Although the law presumed that the teenager was incapable of knowing consent, the defendant could rebut that presumption by demonstrating that the other party did understand the nature of the act and had knowingly consented. But, Robert’s relationship with J. and the investigation that followed fell into the middle of a period of growing attention toward and harsher punishment of sex crimes in Wisconsin. The penalty for 2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a Child—the name Wisconsin then gave to a consensual relationship with a teen under the age of 16—was increased three times between 1995 and 2002. The Wisconsin Sex Offender Registry. As of early 2018, there are more than 21,000 people on the Wisconsin sex offender registry. Their crimes range from consensual sexual relationships with another teenager to violent rape of one or more adult victims to molestation of young children. Being included on the state and federal sex offender registries has a significant impact on the life of a person who has served his or her sentence and returned to the community. In the upcoming book about Robert’s journey, we’ll look at the harms suffered by “perpetrators” whose crimes were similar to Robert’s—or even more innocuous—and their families.
You’ll hear the stories of men not yet old enough to drink who died by their own hands rather than face a lifetime on the registry, fathers who can’t coach their children’s sports teams because of their consensual teenage relationships with the women they later married and raised families with, and a host of others facing personal and professional obstacles—and, occasionally, violence from strangers—because they were among the nearly half of American teens who are sexually active with peers. At least two states have deemed sex offender registration under circumstances like Robert’s unconstitutional, as a violation of the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But, the consequences to registered sex offenders who clearly present no danger to the community are only the beginning. Overly-broad sex offender registration is bad for everyone, including parents and law enforcement officers. As of this writing, there are 2,082 registered sex offenders in the city of Milwaukee. The much smaller city of Appleton has nearly 400. Picturesque Lake Geneva, a popular tourist destination with a population of just 7,651, is home to more than 40 registered sex offenders.How many on those long lists have committed crimes that suggest they may present a danger to the community, and how many are people like Robert, who engaged in normal teenage relationships? I don’t know. That’s the problem. Neither do parents, teachers, or even law enforcement officers who need to make quick judgments. Even looking at the crime each was convicted of (a time-consuming, probably prohibitive process in a place like Milwaukee) won’t tell you much. After all, Robert’s listing bears the same crime—2nd Degree Sexual Assault of a Child—that you’d see on the page of a 60-year-old man who had sex with his 13-year-old stepdaughter, or a middle-aged soccer coach who seduced an 8th-grader. The sheer number of people on sex offender registries for crimes that don’t suggest they pose any threat to the community has become a problem even for those who once advocated most strongly for registries. In 2017, the California legislature voted to reduce the amount of time many offenders spent on the registry, with support from the law enforcement community. With more than 100,000 names on the California list, the state’s registry had become all but useless to those who rely upon it.
The new legislation in Wisconsin represents one small step toward reforming the registry, by providing a path for those convicted on the basis of consensual teen relationships to avoid registration or have their names removed from the registry. But, it is far from a complete solution.
See 2019 retroactive legislation bills below
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2019/related/proposals/sb261.pdf
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2019/related/proposals/ab289.pdf