JUSTICE REHNQUIST announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE STEWART, and JUSTICE POWELL joined.
The question presented in this case is whether California's "statutory rape" law, § 261.5 of the Cal. Penal Code Ann. (West Supp. 1981), violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 261.5 defines unlawful sexual intercourse as "an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a female not the wife of the perpetrator, where the female is under the age of 18 years." The statute thus makes men alone criminally liable for the act of sexual intercourse.
In July 1978, a complaint was filed in the Municipal Court of Sonoma County, Cal., alleging that petitioner, then a 17 1/2-year-old male, had unlawful sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 18, in violation of § 261.5. The evidence adduced at a preliminary hearing showed that at approximately midnight on June 3, 1978, petitioner and two friends approached Sharon, a 16 1/2-year-old female, and her sister as they waited at a bus stop. Petitioner and Sharon,
The Supreme Court held that "section 261.5 discriminates on the basis of sex because only females may be victims, and only males may violate the section." 25 Cal.3d 608, 611, 601 P.2d 572, 574. The court then subjected the classification to "strict scrutiny," stating that it must be justified by a compelling state interest. It found that the classification was "supported not by mere social convention but by the immutable physiological fact that it is the female exclusively who can become pregnant." Ibid. Canvassing "the tragic human costs of illegitimate teenage pregnancies," including the large number of teenage abortions, the increased medical risk associated with teenage pregnancies, and the social consequences of teenage childbearing, the court concluded that the State has a compelling interest in preventing such pregnancies. Because males alone can "physiologically cause the result which the law properly seeks to avoid," the court further held that the gender classification was readily justified as a means of identifying offender and victim. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of the California Supreme Court.
Underlying these decisions is the principle that a legislature may not "make overbroad generalizations based on sex which are entirely unrelated to any differences between men and women or which demean the ability or social status of the affected class." Parham v. Hughes, 441 U.S. 347, 354 (1979) (plurality opinion of STEWART, J.). But because the Equal Protection Clause does not "demand that a statute necessarily apply equally to all persons" or require "`things which are different in fact . . . to be treated in law as though they were the same,'" Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305, 309 (1966), quoting Tigner v. Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 147 (1940), this Court has consistently upheld statutes where the gender classification is not invidious, but rather realistically reflects the fact that the sexes are not similarly situated in certain circumstances. Parham v. Hughes, supra; Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313 (1977); Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 (1975); Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351 (1974). As the Court has stated, a legislature may "provide for the special problems of women." Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636, 653 (1975).
Applying those principles to this case, the fact that the California Legislature criminalized the act of illicit sexual intercourse with a minor female is a sure indication of its intent or purpose to discourage that conduct.
The justification for the statute offered by the State, and accepted by the Supreme Court of California, is that the legislature sought to prevent illegitimate teenage pregnancies. That finding, of course, is entitled to great deference. Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 373-374 (1967). And although our cases establish that the State's asserted reason for the enactment of a statute may be rejected, if it "could not have been a goal of the legislation," Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, supra, at 648, n. 16, this is not such a case.
We are satisfied not only that the prevention of illegitimate pregnancy is at least one of the "purposes" of the statute, but also that the State has a strong interest in preventing such pregnancy. At the risk of stating the obvious, teenage pregnancies, which have increased dramatically over the last two decades,
We need not be medical doctors to discern that young men and young women are not similarly situated with respect to the problems and the risks of sexual intercourse. Only women may become pregnant, and they suffer disproportionately the profound physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of sexual activity. The statute at issue here
The question thus boils down to whether a State may attack the problem of sexual intercourse and teenage pregnancy directly by prohibiting a male from having sexual intercourse with a minor female.
Because virtually all of the significant harmful and inescapably identifiable consequences of teenage pregnancy fall on the young female, a legislature acts well within its authority when it elects to punish only the participant who, by nature, suffers few of the consequences of his conduct. It is hardly unreasonable for a legislature acting to protect minor females to exclude them from punishment. Moreover, the risk of pregnancy itself constitutes a substantial deterrence to young females. No similar natural sanctions deter males. A criminal sanction imposed solely on males thus serves to roughly "equalize" the deterrents on the sexes.
We are unable to accept petitioner's contention that the statute is impermissibly underinclusive and must, in order to pass judicial scrutiny, be broadened so as to hold the female as criminally liable as the male. It is argued that this statute is not necessary to deter teenage pregnancy because a gender-neutral statute, where both male and female would be subject to prosecution, would serve that goal equally well. The relevant inquiry, however, is not whether the statute is drawn as precisely as it might have been, but whether the line chosen by the California Legislature is within constitutional limitations. Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U. S., at 356, n. 10.
In any event, we cannot say that a gender-neutral statute would be as effective as the statute California has chosen to enact. The State persuasively contends that a gender-neutral statute would frustrate its interest in effective enforcement. Its view is that a female is surely less likely to report
There remains only petitioner's contention that the statute is unconstitutional as it is applied to him because he, like Sharon, was under 18 at the time of sexual intercourse. Petitioner argues that the statute is flawed because it presumes that as between two persons under 18, the male is the culpable aggressor. We find petitioner's contentions unpersuasive. Contrary to his assertions, the statute does not rest on the assumption that males are generally the aggressors. It is instead an attempt by a legislature to prevent illegitimate teenage pregnancy by providing an additional deterrent for men. The age of the man is irrelevant since young men are as capable as older men of inflicting the harm sought to be prevented.
In upholding the California statute we also recognize that this is not a case where a statute is being challenged on the grounds that it "invidiously discriminates" against females.
Accordingly the judgment of the California Supreme Court is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE STEWART, concurring.
Section 261.5, on its face, classifies on the basis of sex. A male who engages in sexual intercourse with an underage female who is not his wife violates the statute; a female who engages in sexual intercourse with an underage male who is not her husband does not.
A
At the outset, it should be noted that the statutory discrimination, when viewed as part of the wider scheme of California law, is not as clearcut as might at first appear. Females are not freed from criminal liability in California for engaging in sexual activity that may be harmful. It is unlawful, for example, for any person, of either sex, to molest, annoy, or contribute to the delinquency of anyone under 18 years of
Section 261.5 is thus but one part of a broad statutory scheme that protects all minors from the problems and risks attendant upon adolescent sexual activity. To be sure, § 261.5 creates an additional measure of punishment for males who engage in sexual intercourse with females between the ages of 14 and 17.
B
The Constitution is violated when government, state or federal, invidiously classifies similarly situated people on the basis of the immutable characteristics with which they were
As was recognized in Parham v. Hughes, 441 U.S. 347, 354, "a State is not free to make overbroad generalizations based on sex which are entirely unrelated to any differences between men and women or which demean the ability or social status of the affected class." Gender-based classifications may not be based upon administrative convenience, or upon archaic assumptions about the proper roles of the sexes. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190; Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677; Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71. But we have recognized that in certain narrow circumstances men and women are not similarly situated; in these circumstances a gender classification based on clear differences between the sexes is not invidious, and a legislative classification realistically based upon those differences is not unconstitutional. See Parham v. Hughes, supra; Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 316-317; Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498; cf. San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 59 (concurring opinion). "[G]ender-based classifications are not invariably invalid. When men and women are not in fact similarly situated in the area covered by the legislation in question, the Equal Protection Clause is not violated." Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 398 (dissenting opinion).
C
As the California Supreme Court's catalog shows, the pregnant unmarried female confronts problems more numerous and more severe than any faced by her male partner.
The fact that males and females are not similarly situated with respect to the risks of sexual intercourse applies with the same force to males under 18 as it does to older males. The risk of pregnancy is a significant deterrent for unwed young females that is not shared by unmarried males, regardless of their age. Experienced observation confirms the common sense notion that adolescent males disregard the possibility of pregnancy far more than do adolescent females.
D
The petitioner argues that the California Legislature could have drafted the statute differently, so that its purpose would be accomplished more precisely. "But the issue, of course, is not whether the statute could have been drafted more wisely, but whether the lines chosen by the . . . [l]egislature are within constitutional limitations." Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351, 356, n. 10. That other States may have decided to attack the same problems more broadly, with gender-neutral statutes, does not mean that every State is constitutionally compelled to do so.
E
In short, the Equal Protection Clause does not mean that the physiological differences between men and women must be disregarded. While those differences must never be permitted to become a pretext for invidious discrimination, no such discrimination is presented by this case. The Constitution surely does not require a State to pretend that demonstrable differences between men and women do not really exist.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the judgment.
It is gratifying that the plurality recognizes that "[a]t the risk of stating the obvious, teenage pregnancies . . . have increased dramatically over the last two decades" and "have significant social, medical, and economic consequences for both
Some might conclude that the two uses of the criminal sanction—here flatly to forbid intercourse in order to forestall teenage pregnancies, and in Matheson to prohibit a physician's abortion procedure except upon notice to the parents of the pregnant minor—are vastly different proscriptions. But the basic social and privacy problems are much the same. Both Utah's statute in Matheson and California's statute in this case are legislatively created tools intended to achieve similar ends and addressed to the same societal concerns: the control and direction of young people's sexual activities. The plurality opinion impliedly concedes as much when it notes that "approximately half of all teenage pregnancies end in abortion," and that "those children who are born" are "likely candidates to become wards of the State," Ante, at 471, and n. 6.
I, however, cannot vote to strike down the California statutory rape law, for I think it is a sufficiently reasoned and constitutional effort to control the problem at its inception. For me, there is an important difference between this state action and a State's adamant and rigid refusal to face, or even to recognize, the "significant . . . consequences"—to the woman—of a forced or unwanted conception. I have found it difficult to rule constitutional, for example, state efforts to block, at that later point, a woman's attempt to deal with the enormity of the problem confronting her, just as I have rejected state efforts to prevent women from rationally taking
Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976), was an opinion which, in large part, I joined, id., at 214. The plurality opinion in the present case points out, ante, at 468-469, the Court's respective phrasings of the applicable test in Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 76 (1971), and in Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S., at 197. I vote to affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of California and to uphold the State's gender-based classification on that test and as exemplified by those two cases and by Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 (1975); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636 (1975); and Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U.S. 351 (1974).
I note, also, that § 261.5 of the California Penal Code is just one of several California statutes intended to protect the juvenile. JUSTICE STEWART, in his concurring opinion, appropriately observes that § 261.5 is "but one part of a broad statutory scheme that protects all minors from the problems and risks attendant upon adolescent sexual activity." Ante, at 477.
I think, too, that it is only fair, with respect to this particular petitioner, to point out that his partner, Sharon, appears not to have been an unwilling participant in at least the initial stages of the intimacies that took place the night of June 3, 1978.
I
It is disturbing to find the Court so splintered on a case that presents such a straightforward issue: Whether the admittedly gender-based classification in Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 261.5 (West Supp. 1981) bears a sufficient relationship to the State's asserted goal of preventing teenage pregnancies to survive the "mid-level" constitutional scrutiny mandated by Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976).
II
After some uncertainty as to the proper framework for analyzing equal protection challenges to statutes containing gender-based classifications, see ante, at 468, this Court settled upon the proposition that a statute containing a gender-based classification cannot withstand constitutional challenge unless
The State of California vigorously asserts that the "important governmental objective" to be served by § 261.5 is the prevention of teenage pregnancy. It claims that its statute furthers this goal by deterring sexual activity by males—the class of persons it considers more responsible for causing those pregnancies.
The plurality assumes that a gender-neutral statute would be less effective than § 261.5 in deterring sexual activity because a gender-neutral statute would create significant enforcement problems. The plurality thus accepts the State's assertion that
However, a State's bare assertion that its gender-based statutory classification substantially furthers an important governmental interest is not enough to meet its burden of proof under Craig v. Boren. Rather, the State must produce evidence that will persuade the court that its assertion is true. See Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S., at 200-204.
The State has not produced such evidence in this case. Moreover, there are at least two serious flaws in the State's assertion that law enforcement problems created by a gender-neutral statutory rape law would make such a statute less effective than a gender-based statute in deterring sexual activity.
First, the experience of other jurisdictions, and California itself, belies the plurality's conclusion that a gender-neutral statutory rape law "may well be incapable of enforcement." There are now at least 37 States that have enacted gender-neutral statutory rape laws. Although most of these laws protect young persons (of either sex) from the sexual exploitation of older individuals, the laws of Arizona, Florida, and Illinois permit prosecution of both minor females and minor males for engaging in mutual sexual conduct.
In addition, the California Legislature in recent years has revised other sections of the Penal Code to make them gender-neutral. For example, Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§ 286 (b) (1) and 288a (b)(1) (West Supp. 1981), prohibiting sodomy and oral copulation with a "person who is under 18 years of age," could cause two minor homosexuals to be subjected to criminal sanctions for engaging in mutually consensual conduct. Again, the State has introduced no evidence to explain why a gender-neutral statutory rape law would be any more difficult to enforce than those statutes.
The second flaw in the State's assertion is that even assuming that a gender-neutral statute would be more difficult to enforce, the State has still not shown that those enforcement problems would make such a statute less effective than a gender-based statute in deterring minor females from engaging in sexual intercourse.
III
Until very recently, no California court or commentator had suggested that the purpose of California's statutory rape law was to protect young women from the risk of pregnancy. Indeed, the historical development of § 261.5 demonstrates that the law was initially enacted on the premise that young women, in contrast to young men, were to be deemed legally incapable of consenting to an act of sexual intercourse.
It is perhaps because the gender classification in California's statutory rape law was initially designed to further these outmoded sexual stereotypes, rather than to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancies, that the State has been unable to demonstrate a substantial relationship between the classification and its newly asserted goal. Cf. Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U. S., at 223 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). But whatever the reason, the State has not shown that Cal. Penal Code § 261.5 is any more effective than a gender-neutral law would be in deterring minor females from engaging in sexual intercourse. It has therefore not met its burden of proving that the statutory classification is substantially related to the achievement of its asserted goal.
I would hold that § 261.5 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and I would reverse the judgment of the California Supreme Court.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
Local custom and belief—rather than statutory laws of venerable but doubtful ancestry—will determine the volume of sexual activity among unmarried teenagers.
My conclusion that a nondiscriminatory prohibition would be constitutional does not help me answer the question whether a prohibition applicable to only half of the joint participants in the risk-creating conduct is also valid. It cannot be true that the validity of a total ban is an adequate justification for a selective prohibition; otherwise, the constitutional objection to discriminatory rules would be meaningless. The question in this case is whether the difference between males and females justifies this statutory discrimination based entirely on sex.
In this case, the fact that a female confronts a greater risk of harm than a male is a reason for applying the prohibition to her—not a reason for granting her a license to use her own judgment on whether or not to assume the risk. Surely, if we examine the problem from the point of view of society's interest in preventing the risk-creating conduct from occurring at all, it is irrational to exempt 50% of the potential violators. See dissent of JUSTICE BRENNAN, ante, at 493-494. And, if we view the government's interest as that of a parens patriae seeking to protect its subjects from harming themselves, the discrimination is actually perverse. Would a rational parent making rules for the conduct of twin children of opposite sex simultaneously forbid the son and authorize the daughter to engage in conduct that is especially harmful to the daughter? That is the effect of this statutory classification.
If pregnancy or some other special harm is suffered by one of the two participants in the prohibited act, that special harm no doubt would constitute a legitimate mitigating factor in deciding what, if any, punishment might be appropriate in a given case. But from the standpoint of fashioning a general preventive rule—or, indeed, in determining appropriate punishment when neither party in fact has suffered any special
In my opinion, the only acceptable justification for a general rule requiring disparate treatment of the two participants in a joint act must be a legislative judgment that one is more guilty than the other. The risk-creating conduct that this statute is designed to prevent requires the participation of two persons—one male and one female.
It would seem to me that an impartial lawmaker could give only one answer to that question. The fact that the California Legislature has decided to apply its prohibition only to
I cannot accept the State's argument that the constitutionality of the discriminatory rule can be saved by an assumption that prosecutors will commonly invoke this statute only in cases that actually involve a forcible rape, but one that cannot be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nor do I find at all persuasive the suggestion that this discrimination is adequately justified by the desire to encourage females to inform against their male partners. Even if the concept of a wholesale informant's exemption were an acceptable enforcement device, what is the justification for defining the exempt class entirely by reference to sex rather than by reference to a more neutral criterion such as relative innocence? Indeed, if the exempt class is to be composed entirely of members of one sex, what is there to support the view that the statutory purpose will be better served by granting the informing license to females rather than to males? If a discarded male partner informs on a promiscuous female, a timely threat of prosecution might well prevent the precise harm the statute is intended to minimize.
Finally, even if my logic is faulty and there actually is some speculative basis for treating equally guilty males and females differently, I still believe that any such speculative justification would be outweighed by the paramount interest in evenhanded enforcement of the law. A rule that authorizes punishment of only one of two equally guilty wrongdoers violates the essence of the constitutional requirement that the sovereign must govern impartially.
I respectfully dissent.
FootNotes
Subsequent to the decision below, the California Legislature considered and rejected proposals to render § 261.5 gender neutral, thereby ratifying the judgment of the California Supreme Court. That is enough to answer petitioner's contention that the statute was the "`accidental by-product of a traditional way of thinking about females.'" Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 320 (1977) (quoting Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199, 223 (1977) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment)). Certainly this decision of the California Legislature is as good a source as is this Court in deciding what is "current" and what is "outmoded" in the perception of women.
"even assuming that a gender-neutral statute would be more difficult to enforce, . . . [c]ommon sense . . . suggests that a gender-neutral statutory rape law is potentially a greater deterrent of sexual activity than a gender-based law, for the simple reason that a gender-neutral law subjects both men and women to criminal sanctions and thus arguably has a deterrent effect on twice as many potential violators." Post, at 493-494 (emphasis deleted).
Where such differing speculations as to the effect of a statute are plausible, we think it appropriate to defer to the decision of the California Supreme Court, "armed as it was with the knowledge of the facts and circumstances concerning the passage and potential impact of [the statute], and familiar with the milieu in which that provision would operate." Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 378-379 (1967).
It should be noted that two of the three cases relied upon by JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent are readily distinguishable from the instant one. See post, at 490, n. 3. In both Navedo v. Preisser, 630 F.2d 636 (CA8 1980), and Meloon v. Helgemoe, 564 F.2d 602 (CA1 1977), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 950 (1978), the respective governments asserted that the purpose of the statute was to protect young women from physical injury. Both courts rejected the justification on the grounds that there had been no showing that young females are more likely than males to suffer physical injury from sexual intercourse. They further held, contrary to our decision, that pregnancy prevention was not a "plausible" purpose of the legislation. Thus neither court reached the issue presented here, whether the statute is substantially related to the prevention of teenage pregnancy. Significantly, Meloon has been severely limited by Rundlett v. Oliver, 607 F.2d 495 (CA1 1979), where the court upheld a statutory rape law on the ground that the State had shown that sexual intercourse physically injures young women more than males. Here, of course, even JUSTICE BRENNAN's dissent does not dispute that young women suffer disproportionately the deleterious consequences of illegitimate pregnancy.
The petitioner contends that the statute is overinclusive because it does not allow a defense that contraceptives were used, or that procreation was for some other reason impossible. The petitioner does not allege, however, that he used a contraceptive, or that pregnancy could not have resulted from the conduct with which he was charged. But even assuming the petitioner's standing to raise the claim of overbreadth, it is clear that a statute recognizing the defenses he suggests would encounter difficult if not impossible problems of proof.
In any event, a state legislature is free to address itself to what it believes to be the most serious aspect of a broader problem. "[T]he Equal Protection Clause does not require that a State must choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attacking the problem at all." Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 486-487; see also Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483.
"Q [by the Deputy District Attorney]. On June the 4th, at approximately midnight—midnight of June the 3rd, were you in Rohnert Park?
"A. [by Sharon]. Yes.
"Q. Is that in Sonoma County?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Did anything unusual happen to you that night in Rohnert Park?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Would you briefly describe what happened that night? Did you see the defendant that night in Rohnert Park?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Where did you first meet him?
"A. At a bus stop.
"Q. Was anyone with you?
"A. My sister.
"Q. Was anyone with the defendant?
"A. Yes.
"Q. How many people were with the defendant?
"A. Two.
"Q. Now, after you met the defendant, what happened?
"A. We walked down to the railroad tracks.
"Q. What happened at the railroad tracks?
"A. We were drinking at the railroad tracks and we walked over to this bush and he started kissing me and stuff, and I was kissing him back, too, at first. Then, I was telling him to stop—
"Q. Yes.
"A. —and I was telling him to slow down and stop. He said, `Okay, okay.' But then he just kept doing it. He just kept doing it and then my sister and two other guys came over to where we were and my sister said—told me to get up and come home. And then I didn't—
"Q. Yes.
"A. —and then my sister and—
"Q. All right.
"A. —David, one of the boys that were there, started walking home and we stayed there and then later—
"Q. All right.
"A. —Bruce left Michael, you know.
"The Court: Michael being the defendant?
"The Witness: Yeah. We was laying there and we were kissing each other, and then he asked me if I wanted to walk him over to the park; so we walked over to the park and we sat down on a bench and then he started kissing me again and we were laying on the bench. And he told me to take my pants off.
"I said, `No,' and I was trying to get up and he hit me back down on the bench and then I just said to myself, `Forget it,' and I let him do what he wanted to do and he took my pants off and he was telling me to put my legs around him and stuff—
.....
"Q. Did you have sexual intercourse with the defendant?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. He did put his penis into your vagina?
"A. Yes.
"Q. You said that he hit you?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. How did he hit you?
"A. He slugged me in the face.
"Q. With what did he slug you?
"A. His fist.
"Q. Where abouts in the face?
"A. On my chin.
"Q. As a result of that, did you have any bruises or any kind of an injury?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. What happened?
"A. I had bruises.
"The Court: Did he hit you one time or did he hit you more than once?
"The Witness: He hit me about two or three times.
.....
"Q. Now, during the course of that evening, did the defendant ask you your age?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. And what did you tell him?
"A. Sixteen.
"Q. Did you tell him you were sixteen?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Now, you said you had been drinking, is that correct?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Would you describe your condition as a result of the drinking?
"A. I was a little drunk." App. 20-23.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
"Q. Did you go off with Mr. M. away from the others?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. Why did you do that?
"A. I don't know. I guess I wanted to.
"Q. Did you have any need to go to the bathroom when you were there.
"A. Yes.
"Q. And what did you do?
"A. Me and my sister walked down the railroad tracks to some bushes and went to the bathroom.
"Q. Now, you and Mr. M., as I understand it, went off into the bushes, is that correct?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Okay. And what did you do when you and Mr. M. were there in the bushes?
"A. We were kissing and hugging.
"Q. Were you sitting up?
"A. We were laying down.
"Q. You were lying down. This was in the bushes?
"A. Yes.
"Q. How far away from the rest of them were you?
"A. They were just bushes right next to the railroad tracks. We just walked off into the bushes; not very far.
.....
"Q. So your sister and the other two boys came over to where you were, you and Michael were, is that right?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. What did they say to you, if you remember?
"A. My sister didn't say anything. She said, 'Come on, Sharon, let's go home.'
"Q. She asked you to go home with her?
"A. (Affirmative nod.)
"Q. Did you go home with her?
"A. No.
"Q. You wanted to stay with Mr. M.?
"A. I don't know.
"Q. Was this before or after he hit you?
"A. Before.
.....
"Q. What happened in the five minutes that Bruce stayed there with you and Michael?
"A. I don't remember.
"Q. You don't remember at all?
"A. (Negative head shake.)
"Q. Did you have occasion at that time to kiss Bruce?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. You did? You were kissing Bruce at that time?
"A. (Affirmative nod.)
"Q. Was Bruce kissing you?
"A. Yes.
"Q. And were you standing up at this time?
"A. No, we were sitting down.
.....
"Q. Okay. So at this point in time you had left Mr. M. and you were hugging and kissing with Bruce, is that right?
"A. Yeah.
"Q. And you were sitting up.
"A. Yes.
"Q. Was your sister still there then?
"A. No. Yeah, she was at first.
"Q. What was she doing?
"A. She was standing up with Michael and David.
"Q. Yes. Was she doing anything with Michael and David?
"A. No, I don't think so.
"Q. Whose idea was it for you and Bruce to kiss? Did you initiate that?
"A. Yes.
"Q. What happened after Bruce left?
"A. Michael asked me if I wanted to go walk to the park.
"Q. And what did you say?
"A. I said, `Yes.'
"Q. And then what happened?
"A. We walked to the park.
.....
"Q. How long did it take you to get to the park?
"A. About ten or fifteen minutes.
"Q. And did you walk there?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Did Mr. M. ever mention his name?
"A. Yes." Id., at 27-32.
As the California Supreme Court stated in People v. Hernandez, 61 Cal.2d 529, 531, 393 P.2d 673, 674 (1964) (footnote omitted):
"[E]ven in circumstances where a girl's actual comprehension contradicts the law's presumption [that a minor female is too innocent and naive to understand the implications and nature of her act], the male is deemed criminally responsible for the act, although himself young and naive and responding to advances which may have been made to him."
All three of these approaches have a common failing. They overlook the fact that the State has not met its burden of proving that the gender discrimination in § 261.5 is substantially related to the achievement of the State's asserted statutory goal. My Brethren seem not to recognize that California has the burden of proving that a gender-neutral statutory rape law would be less effective than § 261.5 in deterring sexual activity leading to teenage pregnancy. Because they fail to analyze the issue in these terms, I believe they reach an unsupportable result.
"The Legislature is well within its power in imposing criminal sanctions against males, alone, because they are the only persons who may physiologically cause the result which the law properly seeks to avoid." 25 Cal.3d 608, 612, 601 P.2d 572, 575 (1979) (emphasis in original).
The State is attempting to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy by imposing criminal sanctions on those who engage in consensual sexual activity with minor females. We have stressed, however, that
"[i]f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453 (1972) (footnote omitted).
Minors, too, enjoy a right of privacy in connection with decisions affecting procreation. Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678, 693 (1977). Thus, despite the suggestion of the plurality to the contrary, ante, at 472-473, n. 8, it is not settled that a State may rely on a pregnancy-prevention justification to make consensual sexual intercourse among minors a criminal act.
Because females generally have not reached puberty by the age of 10, it is inconceivable that a statute designed to prevent pregnancy would be directed at acts of sexual intercourse with females under that age.
The only legislative history available, the draftsmen's notes to the Penal Code of 1872, supports the view that the purpose of California's statutory rape law was to protect those who were too young to give consent. The draftsmen explained that the "[statutory rape] provision embodies the well settled rule of the existing law; that a girl under ten years of age is incapable of giving any consent to an act of intercourse which can reduce it below the grade of rape." Code Commissioners' note, subd. 1, following Cal. Penal Code § 261, p. 111 (1st ed. 1872). There was no mention whatever of pregnancy prevention. See also Note, Forcible and Statutory Rape: An Exploration of the Operation and Objectives of the Consent Standard, 62 Yale L. J. 55, 74-76 (1952).
"The obvious purpose of [the statutory rape law] is the protection of society by protecting from violation the virtue of young and unsophisticated girls. . . . It is the insidious approach and vile tampering with their persons that primarily undermines the virtue of young girls, and eventually destroys it; and the prevention of this, as much as the principal act, must undoubtedly have been the intent of the legislature."
As recently as 1964, the California Supreme Court decided People v. Hernandez, 61 Cal. 2d, at 531, 393 P. 2d, at 674, in which it stated that the under-age female
"is presumed too innocent and naive to understand the implications and nature of her act. . . . The law's concern with her capacity or lack thereof to so understand is explained in part by a popular conception of the social, moral and personal values which are preserved by the abstinence from sexual indulgence on the part of a young woman. An unwise disposition of her sexual favor is deemed to do harm both to herself and the social mores by which the community's conduct patterns are established. Hence the law of statutory rape intervenes in an effort to avoid such a disposition."
It was only in deciding Michael M. that the California Supreme Court decided, for the first time in the 130-year history of the statute, that pregnancy prevention had become one of the purposes of the statute.
"The statute is commonly employed in situations involving force, prostitution, pornography or coercion due to status relationships, and the state's interest in these situations is apparent." Brief for Respondent 3.
See also id., at 23-25. The State's interest in these situations is indeed apparent and certainly sufficient to justify statutory prohibition of forcible rape, prostitution, pornography, and nonforcible, but nonetheless coerced, sexual intercourse. However, it is not at all apparent to me how this state interest can justify a statute not specifically directed to any of these offenses.
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