Wednesday, December 17, 2008

You can't be the offender and the victim in the same case

Paul Shipp over at Inre LM, noted that he recently won in In re E.R., No. 100,197 (Dec. 12, 2008), reversing a Finney County juvenile adjudication for a violation of Romeo and Juliet law. Here is Paul's succinct summary:
The Kansas Court of Appeals has ruled that Juvenile's cannot be dually charged with a violation of the State's Romeo & Juliette law.
In other words if you have two underage kids fooling around together, you can't charge them both with sex (or whatever improper intimate contact) with another person who is under age.

Here is a link to the entire blog entry, including links to the briefs in the case. And as Paul notes, if you have former clients with these types of convictions, or if you have clients who have such types of convictions in criminal history, think about a collateral attack. There is a pretty good argument that this type of ruling would apply retroactively.

[Update: the state did not file a PR and the mandate issued on January 15, 2009.]

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