Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County 1981

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages628-632

Page 628

Petitioner: Michael M.

Respondent: Superior Court of Sonoma County

Petitioner's Claim: That the California "statutory rape" statute unlawfully discriminated on the basis of gender.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Gregory F. Jilka

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Sandy R. Kriegler

Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Potter Stewart

Justices Dissenting: William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White

Date of Decision: March 23, 1981

Decision: Ruled in favor of the state of California, upholding its statutory rape law.

Significance: Using intermediate scrutiny, the Court upheld a gender-based distinction in criminal law because it addressed an important state goal.

On the summer evening of June 3, 1978, three males including a seventeen-year-old male named Michael M. approached a sixteen-year-old female, Sharon, and her sister. Michael and Sharon, although they had

Page 629

not known each other previously, left the group. Sharon recalled what happened next in a preliminary hearing.

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 . . . and I was telling him to slow down and stop. He said, 'Okay, okay.' But then he just kept doing it . . . 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. . .

Sharon then had sexual intercourse with Michael.

Statutory Rape

A criminal charge was filed in the Municipal Court of Sonoma County, California, claiming that Michael M. had unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman under the age of eighteen. This action violated California's "statutory rape" law. Statutory rape is the crime of having sexual intercourse with a female under an age set by statute (law passed by a legislature), regardless of whether or not she consents (agrees) to the act. Under California's statutory rape law, when two people between the ages of fourteen and seventeen had sexual...

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